Magical Girl Adorable Achika
by J-Pikachu
Summary: A Pretty Sammy spin-off starring Achika as Tsunami's pet Magical Girl.
1. The Ultimate Temp Job

A Tenchi and Friends Fanfic:

Magical Girl Adorable Achika  
By Justin "J-Pikachu" Palmer

Version History:  
Initial creation (beta 1)02/09/99  
Pre-RC1 revision (beta 40)26/03/00  
Release Candidate 127/03/00  
Final Release10/04/00 22:52

Disclaimer: Objects in the mirror are closer than they actually  
appear. These characters are not mine, nor are the situations. Okay,  
perhaps a couple are. This work is not used for profit; it is  
intended as an expression of my worship of Tenchi Muyo and its  
characters; in particular, the raven-haired goddess Achika, and the  
blue-haired goddess Tsunami, for whom there will never be any other  
English seiyu than Sherry Lynn. Unauthorised MSTing is frowned upon;  
if you absolutely, positively, have to MST this fic, please let me  
know beforehand. Also, if you want to reprint this, let me know  
beforehand, and remember to credit me. Remember, no matter where you  
go, there you are.

Foreword: Yes, it's been done. Another character of the Tenchiverse  
has donned the hallowed Magical Girl guise and fought evil. Now it's  
time for another. This one is tied into the Pretty Sammy OAV  
continuity, not the TV series that I haven't seen, nor am I likely to  
see in the foreseeable future – I doubt Pioneer will be releasing it  
in the UK.

There's a depressing shortage of Achika fics out there, from what I've  
seen. There are a few, really good ones, but none too many use her. (I  
guess being dead IS kind of a disadvantage.) This is part one of the  
first of two series I'm working on to change that, and write for one  
of the franchise's more challenging characters... Series two is herewith  
"hi-mi-tsu" until the basics are finalised.

Oh, in case I forget…

LIME WARNING. This work contains elements of ecchi and fan service,  
which, while not particularly graphic, may render it unsuitable for  
younger audiences.

Thanks to Cav and K'thardin for pre-reading, help with some of the  
technical aspects of this work, and also showing me the picture that  
almost convinced me to advance Sasami and Misao in age, if it didn't  
sit so badly with the rest of the plot. Oh, well, it's an idea…

Part One: The Ultimate Temp Job

"AAAAAGGGGHHHHH! NO! MY UTOPIA LIES IN RUINS!"  
Tsunami looked out of her window, onto the kingdom that would  
ultimately be hers. Although who would want the war zone she saw?

For a month that seemed like an eternity, the magic kingdom  
known as Juraihelm had been in a state of civil war. It all started  
when some of the 108 Priests of the Royal Court began to lose faith  
in the one they had chosen to be queen. The exact words of the leader  
of the opposition were "SHE'S HOPELESS! SHE'LL KILL US ALL!"

The reason behind this: Pretty Sammy, Tsunami's Magical Girl  
champion, had been incapacitated in a fight with her rival, Pixy  
Misa. Without Sammy, Tsunami could not be tested, and her campaign  
was at a standstill.

There was some compensation to all this: Pixy Misa was also  
wounded in the fight, and thusly the campaign of Tsunami's rival,  
Ramia, had also hit a brick wall. This proved to be a devastating  
rebuke for the loyalists' arsenal. In fact, a little too devastating.

The opposition said as much as, "Take that back!"

The loyalists responded with "You take yours back!"

And so the two parties threw tantrums at each other. However,  
when the citizens possess true magic power – power that would make  
David Copperfield look like an 8-year old with a magic set – such  
tantrums get very destructive. And rather surreal.

The opposition began by dropping a bull elephant on the  
loyalist leader.

The loyalists retorted by dropping a Cardassian space station  
on the opposition leader. They were Star Trek fans.

The largest object dropped was a gas giant that nearly knocked  
Juraihelm's planet out of orbit. Fortunately, Tsunami and Ramia – in  
their first, albeit unwitting, joint venture – deflected the gas  
giant before it crushed their world. Both of them thought they  
single-handedly saved the world, and remained blissfully unaware that  
this was not so.

Now the two sides were sniping at one another with directed  
energy blasts. The result: the once beautiful landscape of Juraihelm  
was a patchwork of fire and rubble.

Tsunami couldn't bear to look any more. She covered her face  
with her hands, and sobbed loudly.

She didn't notice the cabbit Ryo-ohki materialise behind her,  
until he spoke. "Sasami's gonna be out of the hospital today, but she  
won't be able to transform into Sammy for a good week or two."

"I can't wait that long," Tsunami replied. "Take a look out  
here."

Ryo-ohki bounced onto Tsunami's head, giving him a good  
vantagepoint. The sight dismayed him.

"See?" Tsunami asked. Ryo-ohki voiced an affirmative. "We need  
to act now, Ryo-ohki. In a week or two, there won't be anything left  
of Juraihelm."

"Point conceded. But Sammy is out of action. What do we do?"

"Plan B, my friend. Plan B."

"You had a plan B? YOU LET THINGS GET THIS BAD WHEN THERE WAS A  
PLAN B!"

Tsunami winced as the cabbit barked directly into her ear.  
Then, out of thin air, she pulled an envelope. The words 'Plan B'  
were written on it in katakana and romaji. Ryo ohki took the envelope  
and bounced onto the windowsill, facing Tsunami. He opened the  
envelope – no small feat when you lack opposable thumbs – and  
extracted the piece of paper therein.

"Okay… 'In the event of the incapacitation of the Magical Girl  
Pretty Sammy, recruit Robert Smith of the Cure.'" Ryo-ohki's face  
dropped. "Tsunami, I hate to tell you this, but the Cure are  
touring."

"I know. Read on."

Ryo-ohki continued to read. "…'Or, in the event of the  
unavailability of Robert Smith of The Cure, recruit another Magical  
Girl.' Recruit another Magical Girl?"

"Yes."

"Are you nuts? Magical Girls are not born every minute!"

"Point conceded. But I have been watching someone that was born  
of Magical blood."

"Who?"

Tsunami turned away from Ryo-ohki and summoned her viewing  
ball. Ryo-ohki leapt onto her head to see.

"The one I need dwells on this planet…" she said. "The one I  
seek dwells on this planet…"

The view on the ball zoomed into Earth. Past the upper  
atmosphere. Past the cloud layer. Down towards a town. Ryo-ohki  
recognised it as the same town that Sasami lived in. But the view  
zoomed in on a different building in the town. A gothic-looking  
building that sat squat on its campus like a fat guy on the toilet. A  
building that looked positively anachronistic next to the aircraft  
hangar-like structure and various portacabins.

Only a high school could be so poorly designed.

In one of the myriad classrooms of this school, a gaggle of  
seventeen-year-olds broke out of the regimental arrangement of their  
desks and gathered into small groups, talking amongst themselves  
during the brief period before their teacher would walk in.

The boys had gathered together, indulging in the time-honoured  
tradition of bullying one of their own into going out with a girl.  
The unfortunate victim of this seriously unwanted attention was  
Tenchi Kawai, the shy guy who was trying to make himself very small.

They had already noted that Tenchi already had two potential  
suitors – Ryoko and Aeka.

"C'mon, Kawai, what's your damn problem?" one of the boys,  
Miyamura, asked. "Man, two hot girls throwing themselves headlong at  
you, ya lucky bastard. Most guys'd give their right nut to be in your  
shoes."

"Dude, you ever seen those girls!" Tenchi said, exasperated.  
"Most guys would actually LOSE their right nut if they were in my  
shoes."

"Seems to me you've already lost one, man. Where's your damn  
testosterone! Just pick one and be done with it."

His spine ejected via his mouth with his last tirade, Tenchi  
was now sweating enough salt water to successfully irrigate most of  
central Africa. "But, er—"

Rather than wait for Tenchi's response, Miyamura went on.  
"Damn, man, you're a wuss. Ya hear that, boys? Kawai's a wuss!"

"I AM NOT!" Tenchi attempted to defend himself.

"Then prove it," another one, Kumamoto – nicknamed 'Lard-Ass'  
due to his unfeasible girth – said. He gestured to the front of the  
class, where two girls were sitting at neighbouring desks, and trying  
very hard not to acknowledge each other's existence. One of them had  
long purple hair styled into a bob, with two ponytails extending from  
beneath it. The other had a mane of cyan spiked hair. From the back,  
with the obvious exception, they looked identical.

"Go on," Kumamoto said. "Prove it. Pick one."

"But… but…" Tenchi stuttered.

Miyamura took his words and made a chicken impression out of  
them. Tenchi scowled at him, before coming to the inescapable  
conclusion that he wasn't going to escape this without doing  
something.

He turned, and like a condemned man, marched down the aisle to  
the desks at which Aeka and Ryoko were sitting.

Aeka noticed the commotion and glanced behind her. Her heart  
rose when she saw Tenchi walking towards her. Looking at her.

She glanced at Ryoko, with a look that betrayed every word she  
thought. See that, Ryoko? Tenchi's picked me! Hahahahaha!

Ignoring Aeka's glance, Ryoko looked behind her, too, to see  
Tenchi walking towards her. Looking at her.

Tenchi's picked me! she thought in glee. Haha! Take that,  
Aeka!

A swarm of butterflies awoke in both their stomachs with every  
step that Tenchi made.

Oh, my, Tenchi, I'm so glad you chose me… they both rehearsed  
their response, blushing furiously as they imagined the scenario.

They both turned to face him, smiling at him, completely  
oblivious to the fact that the other was doing exactly the same.

And this really spooked Tenchi. Two girls, looking at him with  
an identical expression. Both expecting him to choose her.

And then he realised that the gaggle of men behind him was  
awaiting a response. A response he was going to give them.

He stepped closer.

Tenchi! Ryoko thought.

Closer.

Oh, my Tenchi…! Aeka thought.

And then, right at the last minute… Tenchi changed course. He  
steered very clear of them, and ran for the door.

Aeka and Ryoko facefaulted.

He'd decided, instead, to profess his love to the toilet.

Unfortunately, during his exit, he nearly tripped over his  
teacher. As he was leaving, Professor Washu was entering the  
classroom. He looked down at the child-like teacher who was a good  
foot or so shorter than him.

"What's the rush, Mr. Kawai?" Washu said.

"Um, er…" Tenchi replied, just as the boys started a laugh that  
cut through him like a chainsaw. He glanced up, then to the right, to  
glare at the boys.

He double-took who was standing behind Washu, and turned back  
to see…

Well, what he saw never actually left the queue of concepts  
flowing into his mind. As soon as he clapped eyes on the object in  
question, he froze up. His cheeks turned bright red, and, as everyone  
predicted, he fainted.

The boys' laughter intensified at this, but even they fell  
silent when they encountered the Aphrodite incarnate that rushed in  
to try and help their fallen comrade.

The vision of loveliness at the front of them was ever so  
slightly shorter than Tenchi was. Definitely taller than Washu. If  
they counted her wealth of hair, shiny and raven-black, tied into a  
ponytail that erupted from the upper back of her head like a  
fountain, she'd win on the height front. Her hair perfectly framed  
her unerringly cute face, and that look of almost maternal concern  
she was wearing as she tried to bring Tenchi back to consciousness.  
And if the eyes truly were the windows to the soul, then by God, this  
girl must have been the most soulful creature on the planet.

Slowly, but surely, the girl's care worked. Tenchi's eyes  
gently opened.

"Are… are you an angel…?" Tenchi asked, trying to reach out  
blindly to the girl in front of him.

This, in turn, made the girl's expression change. Her concerned  
frown was replaced by a smile that was a strange mixture of maternity  
and mirth, which was so cute that the boys had to hold themselves  
down to stop from hugging the stuffing out of her. She chuckled  
softly, which played upon her face and, if it was at all possible,  
made her look even more beautiful.

This in turn, had gotten the attention of Ryoko and Aeka, who,  
like every other being with a pair of X chromosomes in the room – and  
that included the guinea pig in back – was glaring at the new girl  
with jealousy. Ryoko and Aeka's glares in particular were ludicrously  
intense.

Washu, meanwhile, had anticipated this, and glanced down the  
corridor. Moments later, the school nurse had come in, and began to  
help Tenchi to his feet and to her office.

The swarm of teenagers returned them to their regimental order  
and took their seats, but none of them took their eyes off the new  
girl.

Seconds later, Washu entered the classroom, and took up a  
position to the left of the new girl, who stood demurely next to the  
diminutive teacher.

"Now listen up!" Washu began. "We have a new student joining us  
this semester." She gestured to the girl. "Would you care to  
introduce yourself?"

"Of course, professor," the girl said in a serene, smooth  
voice, bowing to Washu. She turned back to the class and bowed again.  
"My name is Achika Kekoi. I just transferred here from Kurashiki. I'm  
very pleased to meet you."

The boys in the class only now began to notice. She was not  
wearing this school's uniform; instead, she wore the black and white  
sailor fuku of her old school, the common pattern of Japanese State  
schools. They were locked into a gestalt mindset, thinking a single  
thought. 'Damn, she makes that look good.'

A few, however, were concentrating on the body UNDER the fuku.

After Achika finished her introduction, most of the class began  
to feel at ease. One by one, the girls turned the glare off,  
seemingly placated by her peaceful expression. The boys were praying  
to whatever deity they worshipped that they would forgive them if  
they began to worship this goddess. That, and making their final  
prayer that Achika would be giving out contact details before the end  
of the day.

The only people that did nothing were Aeka and Ryoko, who  
continued to pile upon the new kid the sum of all their jealousy.  
Achika seemed oblivious to this; either that or she was a good  
actress.

"Please take a seat, Achika," Washu said, gesturing to an empty  
desk near the back of the classroom. About two seats behind where  
Tenchi would have sat, on the same row.

Achika bowed again to Washu, before walking down into the desks  
to her seat, passing between Aeka and Ryoko.

Ryoko was sorely tempted to trip the girl up. That should screw  
up her divine elan. But she remembered that Washu was watching, and  
if she tried it, she'd be outside with a flowerpot on her head, two  
pales of water in either hand, and a rather demeaning placard round  
her neck before Achika had hit the floor. No, she would get hers.  
Just not now.

"You impressed, Ryo-ohki?" Tsunami addressed her cabbit  
compatriot.

Ryo-ohki was too stunned to respond. Stunned by the girl's  
beauty. Stunned by her heavenly demeanour. Stunned that, once again,  
Tsunami had taken such a lovely young girl and thrown her into the  
Magical Girl machinery, where she would be chewed up and spat out the  
other end… Just like Sasami.

But he couldn't fault Tsunami's choice. Tsunami needed a kind  
and compassionate girl with whom she could share her utopian goal.  
And by god, that girl looked like she had those qualities in spades.  
And she more than likely had them – Tsunami wouldn't have picked her  
otherwise.

"When do we start?" Ryo-ohki asked.

"Right now."

Opening theme: Dream Away – Performed by Megumi Hayashibara and  
Chisa Yokoyama; or Sharon Scott if you prefer

It was lunchtime. Students of all grades were flocking from  
their classrooms to get outside and eat their lunch.

Trapped within the sea of chocolate brown uniform-wearing  
humanity, and being swept away with the current, was a girl with  
shoulder-length auburn hair, wearing a black and white fuku.

"Um, uh, 'scuse me, but, er—" she pleaded. But this was as  
effective as pleading with the tide. She had become firmly trapped in  
the crowd, pumped around the building like a red blood cell caught in  
plasma.

Blood is always ejected via an open wound, and in this case,  
the open wound was the door to the outside. The girl was thrown out  
of the building by the surge of students, coming to a rather dazed  
rest in a clearing.

She could not get her bearings in this alien place. Nothing  
seemed familiar to her.

"Tokimi! Over here!"

Except that voice calling her. She turned to see her friend  
Achika sat under a tree with her lunch.

Achika's smile grew as Tokimi approached. She got to her feet  
to greet her.

"You didn't wait for me," Achika pouted.

"Sorry, I ended up fighting the sea of humanity and losing,"  
Tokimi replied.

Achika let out a soft chuckle. "Did you find your way around  
okay?"

"Kind of. You were lucky. Your teacher ran into you. I had to  
try and find my classroom. I ended up having to ask the janitor, the  
little hentai…"

Achika's eyebrows rose partially in intrigue, and partially in  
concern for her friend.

"Ahem, anyhow, how're your folks moving in?" Tokimi changed the  
subject.

"Lousily," Achika sighed. "I was up most of last night setting  
up my room. Finding places to put everything was a big job."

The two friends sat under the tree and opened their lunches.

"Speaking of jobs, how's your job-hunting going?" Tokimi asked.

"Just as badly. I'm going to check out the mall tonight, see if  
any places there are hiring."

"Kill two birds with one stone, you mean."

Achika looked at Tokimi with shock. As she felt the blood rush  
to her cheeks, she attempted to defend herself. "Wha… What do you  
mean?"

"You want to check out the shops, too, don't you?" Tokimi  
scrutinised her friend, who was slowly turning into a stop sign. "Do  
a reconnaissance mission, hmm?"

Achika looked ticked. "I'll have you know that I am only going  
to the mall with the express intent of locating and acquiring a job."

Tokimi cranked up her expression of disbelief by about a  
trillionfold.

Achika broke eye contact and cast her face and eyes downward.  
"That, and do a reconnaissance mission," she said, quietly.

Tokimi patted Achika on the back. "That's my girl," she said,  
before breaking out into gales of laughter.

Achika looked at Tokimi with a hurt expression on her face,  
before the irony dawned on her, and she too was laughing. Her laugh  
was a musical one that pealed out across the yard like a symphony.

Somewhere, in a secluded corner of that yard, a small brown  
cabbit watched the two girls exchange their merry banter. He smiled  
in mirth. It reminded him of Sasami and her friend Misao.

His face dropped as a marauding cyan spiky-haired girl moved in  
on them.

"Hey, new kid!"

Achika looked up to see the silhouette of a spiky-haired girl  
towering above her. Her face was obscured by the glare of the midday  
sun.

"Well, that identification clears a lot up," Tokimi mused  
sarcastically.

"It's okay, she means me," Achika interjected. "She's in my  
class." She moved to get up, but was pushed down again by the spiky-  
haired girl.

"You sit down," she growled with menace. "I wanna get one thing  
straight with you, new kid – you don't lay a finger on my Tenchi."

Achika took on a look that indicated that what the spiky-haired  
girl had just said had flown over her head and gone to warp. "Um, uh,  
excuse me, but who are you, and who on Earth is 'your Tenchi'?"

The spiky-haired girl thrust her face into Achika's. "DON'T  
PLAY INNOCENT WITH ME, NEW KID!"

If the spiky-haired girl's intention was to scare Achika, it  
either wasn't working or Achika had a poker face.

Achika rose at a speed that surprised her would-be adversary,  
and would make most people dizzy. "Believe me, I have no idea what  
you're talking about," she clarified, remaining completely calm and  
diplomatic.

"Tenchi is the boy in our class you were helping this morning.  
I am Ryoko."

"Well, it's very nice to meet you, Ryoko, but helping someone  
is hardly a crime."

"IT IS WHEN HE'S MY BOYFRIEND!"

Tokimi had also risen. "You're paranoid," she said to Ryoko, in  
a stark contrast to Achika's manner, but just as deadpan. Everyone  
facefaulted.

"YOU STAY OUT OF THIS!" Ryoko barked at her after recovering.

"'Scuse me…" Tokimi muttered to herself.

"RYOKO!" a shrill voice rang out across the yard. All turned  
to its source to see a purple-haired girl storm across the ground  
with a face like thunder. She was flanked by three other girls.

This girl loomed up on Ryoko like an ominous cloud of death.  
Ryoko didn't even flinch.

"WHERE DO YOU GET OFF CLAIMING THAT TENCHI IS YOUR BOYFRIEND?"  
the girl shouted. The combination of her proximity, her shouting, and  
her shrill voice was quite an assault on the eardrums.

"Well, she took her sweet time registering that one," Tokimi  
mused, but she thought about it, and realised that Ryoko's  
proclamation would have taken a few seconds to cross the yard.

"I don't need to claim anything, Aeka!" Ryoko retorted. "Tenchi  
IS my boyfriend!"

"Oh, and since when?"

"Last night," Ryoko's eyes began to glaze over, "when we sat  
under the moon, and he proclaimed his love to me…"

One of the girls stood behind the one named Aeka piped up.  
"That, uh, never happened, did it?"

Still in that warm and fuzzy feeling that her fantasy provided,  
Ryoko replied with a dreamy "No… I saw it on TV last night… HEY!" By  
now, she'd snapped to her senses.

Somewhere in that yard, a cabbit slapped himself on the  
forehead with his paw.

"What a wonderful welcoming committee," Tokimi said, still  
sarcastically.

"Yupper," Achika replied. "Let's get out of here. I don't  
particularly want a floor show while I'm eating."

The two girls began to walk away, but found their path blocked  
by the three girls that flanked Aeka.

"And where do you think you're going?" one of them said. This  
girl was slightly shorter than Achika, but wore her hair in almost  
exactly the same manner, except for a slight curling in her ponytail.

"This is beginning to get annoying," Tokimi declared.

"That's your understatement quota for today," Achika replied,  
before turning her attention back to her challenger. "Who are you,  
the hall monitor?"

"Close," the other girl said. "I bring a welcome message from  
the President of the Student Council."

With that, she attempted to land a left hook on Achika, who  
deftly stepped out of the way. The girl was carried forward by her  
fist's momentum, straight into a position where Achika could sweep  
her down.

Her entourage moved to intercept, but stopped when they found  
Achika had planted her foot in a region of her assailant's back that  
would be very sensitive to any form of external mechanical tension.  
In short, she was totally at Achika's mercy.

"That's a very good idea," Achika said, calmly. "I have no  
intention of hurting anyone unless you force me to, so just back off  
and leave us alone, okay?"

"Better listen to her," Tokimi added. "She knows Tae Kwon Do."

One of the remaining girls, one with short spiky hair, laughed.  
"Hahaha! A pathetic Korean martial art! Koreans, Koreans, they wear  
funny shoes…" she sang mockingly.

This recital was mercifully terminated by her last compatriot  
elbowing her in the stomach. "HEY!" she exclaimed indignantly. "My  
mother's half-Korean!"

"Sorry," the other girl wheezed. "I meant no disrespect."

"Jeez, we got live ones here, ne, Tokimi?" Achika addressed her  
friend.

No response came.

"Tokimi?"

Still no response.

Concerned, Achika turned to see her friend staring blankly into  
space, stood deathly still. "Tokimi, are you okay?"

Tokimi could not even turn her head to acknowledge her.

The girl on the floor felt the weight on her back reduce, and  
took the opportunity. She grabbed Achika's leg and wrenched her to  
the ground. She then got up and kicked some dirt in her face.

"Welcome to the school, new kid," she sneered, before she and  
her entourage walked away.

Shortly thereafter, Tokimi snapped to her senses. "What…? Where  
are…?"

She heard a groan of pain from below her. She turned to find a  
crumpled heap that used to be Achika.

It was now Tokimi's turn to be concerned, as she knelt beside  
her friend. "You okay?"

"I'm going to kill that girl, slowly, and extremely painfully,"  
Achika seethed in reply. "As God is my witness, I am going to kill  
her."

Somewhere in that yard, a cabbit repeatedly hit his head  
against the nearest solid vertical surface, before eventually  
vanishing.

A few hours later, and the day had ended uneventfully. A couple  
of thousand students, from elementary grades through to seniors,  
filtered out of the campus. Among them were Tokimi and Achika.

"What happened to you today?" Achika asked her friend, who  
still seemed a little distracted.

After about three seconds of no response, Tokimi shook herself  
out of her thoughts. "What? Oh, uh… I don't know, Achika. I can't  
explain it. The last thing I remember before I found you on the floor  
was that girl elbowing that other girl in the stomach."

"You still don't look good, Tokimi."

"Yeah, I've been a bit tired recently. I should get an early  
night tonight."

"Mmm," Achika concurred.

She glanced behind her, and hurriedly reeled Tokimi in. Seconds  
later, Tenchi raced past them, in the same lane that Tokimi was  
occupying. "Waah! Get away from me!" he cried.

"Oh, Tenchi!" came Ryoko's voice, as she came in pursuit.

"TENCHI!" Aeka's voice rang out as she gave chase to Ryoko.

Achika and Tokimi watched this, slightly bemused. "Well, I'm  
glad to see the spirit of polygamy lives on in our nation's schools,"  
Achika chuckled.

Tokimi could only watch.

"What? No glib remark, no quip, no sarcastic understatement?  
Jeez, Tokimi, I'm getting worried about you. Seriously. You gotta go  
see a doctor."

"Wha…? Oh, sorry, Achika. You're right. I'll go see one  
tonight."

They approached a post on the pavement that appeared to be a  
bus stop.

"Perfect timing," Achika smiled as a single-deck bus drove down  
the road, "here comes my bus now. You gonna be okay from here?"

"Achika, I'm not an invalid," Tokimi replied. "Go on, go to the  
mall, and tell me where the CD shops are."

"Sure thing. See you tomorrow."

"Mata ne, Achika."

With that, Achika boarded the bus. She took a seat on the port  
side of the vehicle, with a view of the pavement. As it drove off,  
she kept her eye on Tokimi, who began to walk off, oblivious to the  
fact that her friend was casting a very concerned eye upon her.  
Achika watched her until the bus' frame obscured her vision, and even  
then could think of nothing else.

She'd known Tokimi Touma since kindergarten. At first, they  
didn't get on too well, but gradually began to gel. Eventually, they  
became each other's voice of reason; Tokimi, the hyperactive cynic,  
would occasionally tell Achika, the placid diplomat, when she could  
stand to go just a little bit further, while Achika would tell Tokimi  
when to quit… for everyone's good. Eventually, they learned this  
themselves – Achika finally learned when it became necessary to go  
apeshit once in a while (which was VERY infrequently), while Tokimi  
perfected the placid mannerism to further enhance her cynicism – but  
they remained best friends ever since.

What worried Achika was that Tokimi's behaviour today was very  
out of character. Tokimi was basically, as Achika once called her, a  
walking MST – seldom anything went by without her picking up on it.  
She was usually an incessant talker. Today, she wasn't herself on  
both counts. Attributing it to first-day nerves wasn't even an option  
– Tokimi was always very good at adjusting.

It was a puzzle that dominated Achika's mind throughout her  
journey into town.

Tokimi's new home was radically different from her old one in  
Kurashiki. For one, it was a stone's throw from the school, instead  
of a lengthy bus ride. It was also somewhat larger, affording her  
with slightly more real estate – which is what most teenage girls  
wanted. The only problem was that her family had been broken up.

It was cruel irony that as her best friend's father announced  
that he had a new job in this town, and was moving out of Kurashiki,  
that Tokimi's father, another salaryman at the same company, decided  
to walk out on his family, leaving Tokimi and her mother by  
themselves. Tokimi had expressly requested that Achika never talk  
about this, and it was a request that had been honoured all this  
time. In actuality, it worked out for the best.

Tokimi's mother, fearful of being labelled 'single mother' by  
the people in Kurashiki, decided to leave, and Tokimi, in one of her  
masterpieces of tactical planning, suggested this town, under the  
proviso that she'd still be close to Achika. It also had a few other  
advantages that she didn't know about. One, this town had the highest  
demographic of single parent families in the entire Japanese  
archipelago. Two, her mother managed to find a very lucrative job,  
with a generous salary.

Being with her best friend helped to dull the pain that the  
split had entailed, but it didn't exactly take it away. So long as no  
one discussed it in front of her, she was fine; but she'd be the  
first to admit that she needed to talk about it. She just didn't want  
to.

As Tokimi approached the building that she would eventually  
call home, she scouted around for the red Mazda that was her mother's  
car, but could not find it anywhere. A reasonable assumption would be  
that she was still at work.

That assumption was confirmed when Tokimi let herself in and  
called out, "I'm home!", and was met with no response. Not that  
Tokimi minded; she could look after herself. She'd start dinner while  
Pokemon played in the background.

As she proceeded towards the kitchen, away from the TV, she  
brushed past and activated the answering machine. The digital device  
loaded the first of five messages.

"Hello, Mrs Touma, are you interested in savings on long-  
distance phone calls?" a smooth, charismatic male voice said. "Mrs  
Touma, I know you're there."

Tokimi collapsed to the floor and rolled around laughing her  
ass off. This guy must have been really stupid.

"Please pick up!" the man sobbed. "I need this sale, man, or  
they're gonna fire me! Please!"

Faintly, a voice said, "Mr Miura, please report to my office."  
Upon which, the man cried like a little girl, before he hung up.

"Oh, poor guy," Tokimi said. "Well, guess he'll think twice  
before embarking on a career in telemarketing again."

That was the last message she heard.

The television turned off of its own accord. Puzzled, Tokimi  
turned to see why. She saw a tall woman with purple-pink hair,  
dressed in some strange robe, towering above her.

"Who are you?" Tokimi demanded. Or at least, she thought she  
did, but she didn't hear herself. This woman of wild, golden eyes had  
locked her in a hypnotic stare.

'Yes,' she heard her think, 'yes, Tokimi Touma, you will be the  
one…'

By this time, Tokimi was too far gone to even question what was  
happening to her.

The sky above Juraihelm glowed purple, gold, green, blue, and a  
number of other colours. It was quite a beautiful sight, but one that  
came at the cost of collateral damage. For every flash of colour that  
rang out into Juraihelm's night sky, there was almost certainly a  
destroyed building, most likely people injured, and quite possibly a  
number of fatalities.

Rumiya considered himself lucky that he had escaped that while  
he could. But that had come at a price. To do so, he had disowned his  
elder sister, Ramia. That, he didn't mind. What he did mind was that  
he had effectively abandoned his beloved Misao, whom Ramia had forced  
him to periodically enslave to create her Magical Girl, Pixy Misa.

He hated that he had to take advantage of such a sweet,  
defenceless girl. It disgusted him. But he was more afraid of what  
Ramia would do to him if he didn't. Time after time, he forced Misa  
onto Misao, burying what was Misao under Misa. For some unknown  
reason, probably Ramia's doing, Misao's personality never came  
through to Misa, nor did Misao ever remember what she did as Misa –  
her identity hid her person, unlike her would-be nemesis, Pretty  
Sammy, whose persona was completely under her owner's control. In  
some cases, this was a good thing, but there were times when this was  
not so.

The last straw came with Misa's last attack, but it had been  
coming to a head since Ramia's abortive alliance with that American  
guy, Biff Standard. Ramia had entered into a plan to crash the moon  
into Earth to strip Sammy of her powers, completely oblivious and  
uncaring as to what it would do to the other six billion people on  
that world… and Misao. Ramia displayed that same trademark  
selfishness again, during that last fight. She pushed Misa, and  
pushed and pushed and pushed some more… and then a little more.  
Eventually, Misa could not take any more, and the damage sunk down to  
Misao too. When Misa exploded, she took Sammy with her.

And when Misa exploded, so did Rumiya. Before his sister knew  
what was happening, Rumiya had vowed never to turn Misao into Pixy  
Misa ever again. He could remember the last words he said to his  
sister. "I have no sister. My sister is dead. She died when Misa  
exploded." After that, he left for his new home.

This one.

He was a private citizen again. He had no need to follow  
Ramia's whims any more. But he was now at risk from attack by either  
of the factions – Tsunami's for being a collaborator with the enemy,  
or Ramia's for being a traitor. And worse still, he was separated  
from any prolonged contact with Misao.

He sensed something move behind him. A small object, looked  
like a cat… a rabbit… something in between.

"Come to kill me, Ryo-ohki?" he said. "Wouldn't be the first  
time one of your guys tried to do that."

"No, I haven't, Rumiya," Ryo-ohki replied, in all of his  
copious sincerity. "I wouldn't do that to an old friend, no matter  
what he's done."

Ryo-ohki's words cut through Rumiya. Maybe it would be better  
if he did kill him. At least he'd care enough to spare him the  
suffering. He turned to face the cabbit. "Then what are you here  
for?"

"I came to talk to you."

Rumiya broke out in a gale of laughter. "You? Talk to me? You  
haven't talked to me in years!"

"Not since you left to work for Ramia."

Rumiya's look became one of utter rage. "NEVER, EVER MENTION  
HER NAME IN FRONT OF ME! EVER! SO HELP ME, RYO-OHKI, YOU SPEAK  
THAT NAME AGAIN, AND I WILL BREAK YOUR NECK!"

"Sorry. How is R- your sister?"

"I have no sister," Rumiya growled. "My sister is dead. She  
died when Misa exploded." That had become his standard response. "Why  
the sudden concern for me?"

"Can't we still be friends? You don't work for R- her any  
more." That was twice that he had to correct himself. He mentally  
chided himself for slipping.

"Ryo-ohki, if you want to approach me as a friend, please don't  
insult me by hiding behind your animal form."

"I'm sorry." Ryo-ohki's face contorted in pain as his body  
began to grow and expand. No longer was a cabbit stood before Rumiya.  
Ryo-ohki was now a boy. A boy with marked feline features – fangs,  
enlarged furry ears. His clothes had trimmings that appeared to  
mirror the fur of his animal form, just as Rumiya's clothes had  
feathery trimmings.

"You okay, Ryo-ohki?" Rumiya asked.

"Yeah," Ryo-ohki sighed. "I'm a little out of practice."

"Hmm," Rumiya voiced his concurrence. "As for me, I change back  
at least once a day."

"Good for you."

"Well, I'm sure you're not here to reminisce about the good old  
days, are you? What do you want?"

"Information."

"Hmm… thought so. All right, Leo McKern, what information?"

"Tsunami would like to know if R- she had any contingency  
plans for the incapacitation of her Magical Girl?"

"Tsunami! Tsunami couldn't figure out her own shoe size. Why  
is she so interested in contingency plans?"

"She's not quite the same Tsunami. She's not quite as dumb as  
she acts."

"She acts! Give her an Emmy from me. As for your information…"  
Rumiya gave a good, long pause, before continuing. "…Go fuck  
yourself."

Ryo-ohki's eyes nearly shot out of his skull.

"If you think for one moment that I am going to sell anyone  
out, you are hopelessly mistaken. I may hate her with every fibre of  
my being, but I won't sell her out, either. Now get out, Ryo-ohki.  
And don't come back."

"But—"

Rumiya flashed Ryo-ohki a look that indicated that he would, if  
necessary, back that up with a threat that he was more than capable  
of executing.

"Take care," Ryo-ohki said, as he disappeared from the room.

"And may the sight of the Hawk Spirit guide you, old friend,"  
Rumiya whispered.

The town mall was fairly busy, as people who'd just come from  
work and school did a little shopping. It wasn't so busy as to become  
the Square Where All Humanity Meets, but busy enough for the myriad  
shopkeepers to turn a healthy profit.

Achika wandered the aisles of the mall's lower deck, slowly,  
methodically scanning and noting the geographical location of every  
store that she, as an ever-so-slightly-westernised Japanese teenage  
girl, should know of… and the grocery stores. After all, the  
responsibility of making and shopping for dinner often fell to her,  
and her mother would probably want to know of them, too.

She was eager, however, to take on more varied  
responsibilities, and earn a tidy sum of money while she was at it,  
and so she began the search for a job, preferably one that didn't  
interfere with her other obligations. Reasonable, part time hours  
where she could do what she loved to do – help people.

She double-took a sign in the window of one shop that answered  
the exact criteria she was looking for. She looked further into the  
shop, to see what it was all about. Rows upon rows of CDs in jewel  
cases.

A CD store. Sweet!

Achika looked up and noted the name of the store.

CD Vision? How very Japlish.

Still, a job's a job, Achika declared to herself as she charged  
toward the shop.

Two young women were staffing the shop floor from behind the  
counter. A tanned blonde and her teal-tressed friend served their  
customers in turn. At that moment, the blonde had just handed a  
customer an imported movie soundtrack, costing a good 4000 yen, with  
tax.

This customer left as Achika entered. She approached the  
counter.

"Hello!" the blonde said in a very cheery manner.

"Hi! Can we help you?" the teal-haired one asked, not quite as  
cheerily as her friend, but just as warm.

"I, uh, hope so," Achika replied. "You looking for a part-time  
sales assistant?"

"Uh, I don't know."

"Well, according to your sign, you are."

The teal-tressed woman left the counter and went up to the  
front of the store. She found the card in the window, and read it.

"Well, it's about damn time she hired someone else!" she  
exulted.

"What?" Achika inquired, concerned by her angry tone.

The woman blushed and faced Achika with a placating smile. "Oh,  
nothing. You're hired. Welcome aboard. I'm Kiyone, and the bubblehead  
at the counter is Mihoshi."

The one named Mihoshi bowed. "How d'you d-OW!" As she bowed,  
she hit her head on the counter.

As a bead of sweat appeared on Achika's brow, Kiyone pulled up  
beside her. "Don't worry," she whispered, "you'll get used to this.  
Anyway, quick induction for you: you'll spend most of your time  
working out here with us, selling stuff, putting the CDs in the jewel  
cases, stock-taking, answering customers' queries and complaints,  
talking down whatever crazed lunatic comes through that door with a  
shot-gun…"

Achika snapped her head toward Kiyone. "You're kidding!"

"Nope, it happened once, when we sold out of Star Wars 1  
soundtracks. On occasion, you may be asked to clean up at night. That  
okay?"

"Sure, that's fine."

"Bathroom, should you need it, is in back. Fire exits are front  
entrance, back door, and anything breakable, including the windows."

"Okay. Thanks."

The door at the front of the shop slid open. Through it, walked  
a tall woman with curly strawberry-blonde hair. Two girls, who looked  
about 10, accompanied her. One had long raven-black hair styled with  
slight curls making it appear more voluminous, a pale complexion, and  
green eyes. The other one had shocking pink-within-pink eyes, and  
straight water-blue hair that would have tumbled down past her waist,  
were it not tied into two ponytails.

"We're home!" the tall woman announced.

Kiyone turned to face them. "Oh, Manager!" she bowed. "Welcome  
back! Are you okay now, Sasami?"

"Just fine, thanks, Kiyone!" the blue-haired girl replied.

"How about you, Misao?"

The sickly looking girl gave a slight cough before responding.  
"Yes, thank you."

Achika could sense something about that girl. She didn't quite  
know what.

"Oh, Manager, I'd like you to meet the new sales assistant… oh,  
I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

"I haven't told it you yet," Achika replied. "Achika Kekoi."

"…Achika Kekoi. Achika, this is the store's owner, manager,  
patron goddess…"

The tall woman started to grin.

"…Chihiro Kawai. That's her daughter, Sasami," she gestured to  
the blue-haired girl, "and her friend, Misao Amano," she finished  
with the raven-headed one.

'Amano!' a thought screamed in Achika's mind. 'My god…'

Chihiro smiled warmly at her new employee. "Welcome aboard,  
Achika."

Sasami bowed to her. "Hello, nice to meet you."

"Pleasure to meet you," Achika bowed back. She turned to  
Kiyone. "So, when do I start?"

"As of five seconds ago," Chihiro replied on Kiyone's behalf.  
"Your first job is to make a delivery." She walked over to the  
counter and dived behind it, coming back up with a CD-sized package.  
"Could you deliver this to the abandoned mansion on Third Street,  
please?"

No one noticed Sasami's eyebrows rising.

"The lady there also has a 4000 yen tab. Coupled with delivery  
for this and her previous order, you should come back with 9000 yen."

"Now? It's getting dark out!" Achika protested.

"Sorry, Achika," Kiyone mused. "Company rules. New guy always  
gets the crappy job."

"Yeah, but that usually extends to making tea."

"Nope, that's day two. Day one entails you making late  
deliveries to the quiet part of town. Besides, that's an irrational  
fear. Women aren't attacked in Japan, at night."

'Evidently the words Tsutomu Miyazaki aren't in her  
vocabulary…' Achika thought. "Okay, I'm gone. Be back soon."

As Achika turned to leave, Sasami stopped her. "Good luck," she  
said, softly.

"Thanks." With that, Achika left the shop.

Sasami watched her as she left, locked in thought. 'The mansion  
on Third Street? That's where I met Tsunami! I wonder…' "Where's Ryo-  
ohki?"

Kiyone's face dropped. "I'm so sorry, Sasami, but Ryo-ohki's  
been missing for the last few weeks, since you've been in hospital."

Tears welled in the girl's eyes. "No…" 'He couldn't have died  
in that blast! He couldn't have!' Sobbing, Sasami ran into the back  
room.

"She didn't take that too well," Mihoshi stated. All assembled  
glared at her.

"Stupid damn store, delivering to a stupid mansion on stupid  
Third Street in the stupid quiet part of town at a stupid time in the  
stupid evening…"

Achika stormed down the street, muttering her indignation. She  
held the package close to her chest, guarding it like a tigress,  
glaring suspiciously at anyone who might threaten to take it from  
her.

Working in the warm shop, putting CDs in jewel cases, selling  
stuff. That was in her job description. NOT waltzing halfway across  
town in the early evening, then back again. They better not ask her  
to go to Hokkaido…

Who the hell did they think she was? FedEx!

Oh, for god's sake, Achika, lighten up! she chided herself.

She approached a pair of tall gates, wide enough to fit a  
family car through, that appeared to be the only means of ingress  
through the 10-foot tall perimeter fence of a colossal estate. The  
unobtrusive black-painted metal railings, set into brickwork,  
afforded a glimpse into the unkempt and overgrown gardens, weeds, and  
wildflowers that, with some tender loving care, could be a beautiful  
sight. They probably were, once. Now, they were just ugly.

Achika stood before the gates, flanked by two huge green  
bushes, contemplating whether or not to go in.

Her thoughts were interrupted as a flock of birds picked that  
EXACT moment to fly out of the bushes, their fluttering and  
screeching startling her. She clutched her chest, and attempted to  
steady herself. "Take it easy," she said to herself. "You don't  
control the birds. You will some day, but not today."

She stepped towards the gates, and, after taking a moment to  
locate the latch, swung them open. She gingerly, tentatively walked  
inside, and was about to turn around and close the gates… only to  
discover they'd closed themselves. And there was no evidence of any  
motors, or breeze that would have done so.

"This is starting to creep me out."

As Achika approached the huge house, she was dismayed. This  
building was the textbook definition of dilapidated. Floorboards and  
window frames had gone rotten, and the windows were beginning to  
distort as the glass started to liquefy.

This had to be a hoax order. Hell, the folks from the shop had  
probably winged over here and were planning some cruel initiation  
behind that door.

Before entering, Achika took a moment to look into the house  
through the windows. Seeing through the distortion was like trying to  
see a stereoscopic picture, something she could never do, but she  
could see an equal amount of disarray inside. It looked like the  
place hadn't been cleaned in at least 20 years.

Just to make one last check, she knocked on the door and called  
out. "Hello? I'm from CD Vision! I've got a delivery for you!"

No response.

Achika sighed. "Well, Achika, girl, you REALLY know how to pick  
'em."

Then something, she had no idea what, pulled her forcibly  
toward the doors. She wasn't pushed, she was definitely pulled  
towards those doors; but there was nothing ahead. And the centre of  
gravity was too high to be a snare wire. The acceleration and  
velocity made her nauseous; simultaneously, adrenaline was augmenting  
that, alerting her to the fact that she was hurtling towards a pair  
of very sturdy hardwood doors at a high rate of speed. Either her  
body, or those doors, had to give, and it was unlikely that those  
doors would.

Fortunately, the doors swung open before she became chunky  
salsa over them. Once past the threshold, the force stopped pulling  
her, but inertia continued to propel her top half forward even after  
her sneakers had engaged with the hardwood floor. She fell flat on  
her face.

As she lay dazed, the doors closed behind her.

After a few seconds, she regained her equilibrium and picked  
herself up off the floor, putting her nose back into joint. Then she  
took a look around.

What she saw now, wasn't what she saw through the window.  
Everything was… clean! No dust, no cobwebs… There was wonderful mood  
lighting, a landscape picture at the top of the stairs, even flowers  
in the flowerpots.

Achika was really starting to freak out about now.

Then a voice – a sweet, heavenly voice - called from the top of  
the stairs. "Are you Achika Kekoi?"

Achika looked up to see a beautiful, blue-haired woman, with  
two green dots on her forehead, dressed in an elaborate robe.

"Yes, I am. But… how do you know my name?" She sounded very  
confused, and very, very worried.

When this woman floated – 'FLOATED!' Achika's overloaded mind  
added to the queue of concepts that just didn't tally here – down the  
stairs, these feelings were cranked up to overdrive.

"My name is Tsunami," she said. "I'm pleased to meet you."

As Tsunami made a graceful touchdown five metres in front of  
her, Achika stammered out, "I-it's nice to meet you too, Miss  
Tsunami…"

Tsunami stepped towards the trembling girl in the fuku. "I am a  
candidate for the Queen of the Magic Kingdom known as Juraihelm."

About ten seconds after this proclamation, during which there  
was a deafening silence broken only by the reverberation of Tsunami's  
voice, Achika facefaulted with enough force to take out most of the  
Kanto region.

"Um, are you okay, Achika?" Tsunami asked.

Achika got on her feet. "Let me get this straight: you think  
you're a candidate for the Queen of the Magic Kingdom?"

"No, I don't. I know."

"Yeah, and I'm the Happy Magical Fairy from Happy Land!" Achika  
retorted in a diminutive voice. "With a gumdrop house on Lollipop  
Lane!"

"Please take me seriously," Tsunami pleaded indignantly.

"You have no idea as to the invalidity of that request. I've  
been besieged by weird stuff today, but this has to rate a good 10 on  
the Dali scale. I've seen every episode of Magic's Greatest Secrets,  
enough to know that magic doesn't exist! You're probably Valentino in  
a body suit!"

At that moment, the package she was clutching decided to free  
itself from her embrace, and float into the air. The package  
disintegrated – first the paper, then the polythene, and finally the  
jewel case, all broke up in mid-air – leaving only the CD, which  
started spinning at about the standard rate for a CD player. And then  
music – a heavy rock track – started to play.

Tsunami looked at peace as she took in the music. "Ah! I just  
love Guns 'n' Roses, don't you?"

Achika sweatbeaded. "Uh, actually, Tsunami, this is the Sheryl  
Crow version."

"How did you know?"

"The key. Axel F and Sheryl Crow cannot share a key."

"You're smart. I like that."

"That, and the liner notes fell at my feet."

Tsunami looked down to see the remains of the CD's jewel case,  
and the pamphlet-like inlay card, beside Achika's polished black  
school shoes. "Oh! Uh, ahem… You're, uh, probably wanting an  
explanation, aren't you?"

Achika smiled and nodded politely. "Couldn't hurt."

Tsunami sighed. 'It was easier with Sasami…' she thought. "I've  
come to scout you as a Magical Girl, Achika. I believe you have the  
qualities I need."

"Magical Girl! As in Sailor Moon! NO WAY!"

"Way. You will become Magical Girl Adorable Achika. You will  
use your powers to fight evil, help the innocent, and make this  
world… a happier place…" To emphasise her point, Tsunami floated  
around the room, a happy smile on her face.

"Oh, my god. I see it all now. You're the illegitimate child of  
David Copperfield and Mr Rogers!"

While hovering, Tsunami facefaulted and plummeted to Earth like  
a fallen angel. Thereafter, she scrambled to her feet, and looked  
like she was concentrating, willing something to happen.

At about that time, the music stopped, and if one strained, one  
could hear a sound like a CD player assembly powering down, including  
the laser moving to its home position. The disc stopped moving, then  
changed shape, in a flash of light changing from a plastic disc lined  
with an aluminium wafer, into an animal about the size of an adult  
cat. This animal floated towards Achika like it was being carried by  
the scruff of its neck.

"You're a… a… a… What the hell are you?" Achika inquired.

"I'm a cabbit," the animal replied. "Part cat, part rabbit. My  
name is Ryo-ohki. I'll be your partner."

Achika looked mortified. "A… A… A talking… talking… CABBIT-  
THING!" She held the sides of her head, and ran around like a  
headless chicken. "I'M GOING INSANE, SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

"No, you're not," Tsunami interjected. "If you were, then I  
most certainly am."

Achika came to a dead stop. "I'm still not sure whether you are  
insane. But I'll humour you guys just to see where this goes."

Ryo-ohki pirouetted around in mid-air, and materialised a  
baton-like object homologous to a baseball bat, but far more  
elaborate. Take the handle of a baseball bat, stick a modest-sized  
loop to the hilt, then add an object akin to a personal organiser  
wrapped up in white paper tied up in a ribbon, then a flower-like  
arrangement to the top, then paint organiser and handle in pink, and  
one would have this object.

And this object landed in Achika's hands.

"Okay, Achika, just lift that baton and say 'Adorable Mutation,  
Magical Recall'," Ryo-ohki said. "Go on, try it."

"Why?" Achika inquired. "What happens when I do?"

"Try it, and you'll find out."

Achika paused for a second. "Never let it be said that I'm not  
trusting." She flourished the baton above her head, upon which the  
flower-like attachment opened up to reveal a heart-shaped object held  
to the petals by a pair of ornamental turtles. "Adorable Mutation…"  
she began, then added a dramatic pause, "…MAGICAL RECALL!"

She then pirouetted and floated into the air. Hovering about  
two and a half metres above the ground, a series of changes took  
place. Her fuku, and her underwear, fell off and vaporised, leaving  
her spinning buck-naked for a spell. It was about this time that a  
wave of euphoria overtook Achika, and she lost any meaningful  
consciousness.

Seconds later, she landed. It took a few more seconds for her  
to come out of the high of her own endorphins, but when she did,  
everyone in that room knew it.

She took one look at her costume, and screamed in horror.  
"WAAAH! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME! YOU'VE TURNED ME INTO A SAILOR  
SCOUT!" To that, she collapsed to her knees and burst into tears.

Achika was now wearing perhaps the least flattering costume  
known to humankind. It was a modified version of the sailor fuku. The  
top was pure white, with a blue facing that extended from within the  
collar, starting and finishing at her breasts, and wrapped around the  
neck, leaving a flap on her back, and made the top into a V-neck.  
Unlike the standard version, this was VERY figure hugging, holding  
close to her waist and hips. And unlike the standard version, it had  
no piece of fabric along the base of the V-neck, thus nothing to hide  
the cleavage generated by a marriage of her ample bosom and the  
costume's form, that poked over the heart-shaped sapphire on her  
breast like a submarine periscope. This top finished in a point that  
looked like a crotch, in that it wrapped around her bikini-line and  
intruded on the insanely short radial-creased skirt, both of which,  
together with the knee-high boots of the same dark blue colour as the  
skirt and the collar facing, served to enhance the apparent length of  
her legs. A pair of elbow-length white gloves with dark blue piping  
at the elbow, and a light-blue bow at the front, surrounding the  
sapphire, together with a larger one at the back, completed the  
outfit.

Any red-blooded man would have died of a nosebleed by now, and  
Ryo-ohki was fighting a flow of blood that was seeping out of his  
nose. He leapt onto Achika's shoulder and attempted to console her.  
"Quit whining, Achika," he said, "you look great."

"I look great!" Achika exclaimed in disbelief. "I LOOK LIKE  
SAILOR MERCURY!"

Tsunami explained. "Well, uh, they were running a special at  
Magical Girl Surplus. Two for one on Sailor Mercury outfits."

"Really?" Achika said, on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  
"Who gets the other one?"

"You do, just in case you ever want to go to a costume party."

Achika facefaulted. "Thanks a lot, Tsunami. Thanks a lot."

Tsunami went on. "When, and only when you are transformed, you  
can use magic. Ryo-ohki will fill you in on the rest. Do you have any  
questions?"

"Just one," Achika replied, as she tried to recover her  
dignity. "Why do my clothes fall off when I transform?"

"Fan service. Any more?"

"Yeah…" Achika looked at herself again, which served only to  
remind her of what she was wearing. "WHY THIS COSTUME?"

"Aw, come on, it's not that bad," Ryo-ohki answered. "You could  
have had a Devil Hunter Yohko outfit."

"I happen to like that show! I'd have been happy to wear one of  
those outfits! And just look at it! It doesn't even conceal my  
identity! If anything it's showing just a little too much of me…"  
Achika blushed furiously.

"Don't worry about that," Tsunami assured. "As long as you are  
transformed, you'll be recognised only as your Magical Girl self…"

"…And dismissed just as quickly," Achika jested in an ersatz  
Rip Torn. "You don't exist, you were never even born."

"That's right! How did you know I was going to say that?"

Achika facefaulted.

"You'll only have to endure this for a while, Achika," Tsunami  
continued. "It's only temporary, because the usual Magical Girl's…  
sick."

She thought it best not to mention what happened to Pretty  
Sammy… Achika already had no faith in the system; she didn't want her  
running for the hills.

"Terrific," Achika sighed. "This has to be the ultimate temp  
job. At least, I hope it's a temp job – I don't think I could do this  
for the rest of my life."

"Well, then, I wish you Godspeed. Good luck, Achika." Tsunami  
waved, as she floated back up the stairs.

"AHEM!" Achika coughed to get her attention.

Tsunami came to a dead stop. "What's wrong?"

"You, uh, owe me 9000 yen."

Tsunami's eyes bulged. "The tag was only 1000."

"Yeah, but there's 1000 for delivery, and you have a 4000 tab,  
plus delivery for that one, plus a lateness penalty. Please pay up,  
it's my first day."

Tsunami began to madly fondle every pocket and orifice of her  
robe, trying to find some money. "Um, uh, er, oh…" If one didn't know  
any better, it would look like she was… "Uh, will you take a cheque?"

A map of the town redrew itself on the TFT LCD screen of  
Washu's heart-shaped laptop about sixty times a second. It did so in  
a window in the corner of the desktop, while Washu dashed off a  
sizeable batch of senior class school reports in the active word  
processor.

The computer played a sound sample to get her attention, and,  
in time to the sample, flashed the map window's title bar.

"Hmm… What's this?" she asked herself as she maximised the  
window to stretch it over the entire breadth of the 12-inch screen.  
The map resized accordingly, giving Washu a better view of what she  
was meant to see.

Two points flashed on the map, indicating some form of activity  
at different points in the town.

"Hmmm… Magical Girl activity? Now that's something I haven't  
seen in a while. It doesn't appear to be in the normal place… Ooh,  
the energy spectrum's different, too… Could Sammy and Misa be  
fighting again?"

Washu felt something crawl up her arm. She made no reaction to  
bat said thing off her arm, because she knew what it was. "Well, hi  
there," she said, addressing the creature that looked like a cutefied  
red crab – if one could make a crab cute.

"Good evening," the crab replied in a… well, crabby voice.  
"What's up?"

"Check this out," she asked of the sentient crustacean. The  
crab made its way up to Washu's shoulder, then came about to face the  
screen. "We got magical aura in town again," Washu went on.

"Sammy and Misa?" the crab guessed.

"That's what I thought, until I looked at the energy spectra.  
It seems to be broader, and more intensive."

"Hmm, you're right. To put out that kind of spectrum, the  
object would have to be somewhat bigger than Sammy and Misa."

"Whatcha think? Those walking Jell-O-moulds again?"

"Nope, that's too big, I'd say. May I borrow the computer?"

"Sure thing."

The crab trotted sideways, back down Washu's arm, and, using  
its pincers, started tapping away on the laptop.

In this crab, Washu found not only a great pet, but also an  
ideal roommate. It had quite literally fallen from the sky after  
hitchhiking on a comet that ploughed into a peninsula somewhere in  
Izu. At that time, it was a mere, to quote Washu, "gloopy glob of  
weird stuff". A gloopy glob of weird stuff with telepathic powers and  
a formidable intellect, but still a gloopy glob of weird stuff. It  
had been captured by the national scientific institute, which  
promptly experimented upon the hapless blob and found no response.  
They called upon Washu, the world-renowned prodigious scientist, to  
give it a try. After 'coaxing' the blob out of its container, she  
found out about the creature, which began to use its telepathic  
powers on her. Its species had the power to link with any being it  
encountered and take on some of its characteristics. Precisely how  
this one became a crab after linking with Washu was never understood,  
but it happened.

Fortunately, the creature it encountered wasn't hostile or  
violent. If it was, chances were that it would become so, too. Such a  
fate befell one that became the humanoid that blew up a sizeable  
portion of Izu. That particular creature was kept in a jam jar in the  
freezer, right next to the Haagen-Dazs.

Ever since then, the crab and Washu were seldom seen apart, and  
Washu adopted it as a kind of pet-cum-roommate, with whom she could  
argue the law of relativity, bandy about the idea of time travel, and  
laugh at Star Trek.

Whatever the crab was doing, it finished. "Okay, I just wrote a  
program that should calculate the size of body that can output that  
kind of energy. According to this, you're looking at… your average  
gas supergiant."

Washu facefaulted.

"OR…" the crab went on, "taking into account the information we  
have on Magical Girls, most likely a girl of about 160-170  
centimetres height, body mass of around 50-70kg."

"Doesn't match Sammy or Misa," Washu said, picking herself up  
off the floor. "Suppose we got new players in town?"

"Looks that way."

"That'll be three thousand yen, including tax."

The customer handed over three 1000-yen notes to Mihoshi, and  
took his CD away. As he left the store, a group of four rather burly  
men dressed in leather entered. One of them approached the counter.

"Hi! Can we help you?" Kiyone asked the man.

The man spoke. "We are looking for the Star Trek Insurrection  
soundtrack."

"That'll be on Soundtracks. Aisle five."

One of the men walked over to the section of the nominated  
aisle. He stood, looked at it for a moment…

…Then proceeded to destroy the section with an almighty  
roundhouse kick. CDs and jewel cases took to the air like Frisbees  
and their less aerodynamic cousins.

Needless to say, Mihoshi and Kiyone were rather startled.

"Now," the first man spoke, "empty the register and put the  
money in a bag."

"HOLD IT!" a voice rang out. Moments later, a flash of blue  
shot past the assembled cast's eyes, and stood before them, in a  
defensive yet demure stance, was a leggy, raven-haired girl in a  
Sailor Mercury outfit.

The men recoiled in fear, as the man who kicked in the display  
case made flashy callisthenics-like moves. "Damn you!" he said in an  
over-dramatic, vaguely oriental voice that didn't match his lip  
movements – kind of like a badly dubbed Hong Kong movie. "You must be  
the infamous Magical Girl that fights crime and punishes criminals –  
Adorable Achika!"

The apparent leader piped up. "My god! It's the Magical  
Adorable Girl, Beautiful Achika!"

The raven-headed girl in the Sailor Scout costume winced.  
"Actually, it's Adorable Achika, but I appreciate the compliment."

The leader bowed. "Don't mention it."

While he was bowing, Achika kicked him square in the groin. He  
collapsed to the floor, still bowing, but now he was prostrate and  
clutching his family jewels.

"WOW! I've been kicked in the nuts by Adorable Achika!" he  
babbled, tears streaming from his eyes.

"Damn you!" Mr Bad Dub said, continuing to do the  
callisthenics. "You will pay for that!"

He lunged toward Achika, who nonchalantly extended a fist for  
him to run into. He impaled his stomach right up to her elbow.

One of his pals, armed with nunchukus, started swinging the  
weapons around in a threatening manner. Achika responded by throwing  
Mr Bad Dub onto him, allowing his sizeable girth to flatten the  
comparatively weedy man.

The last one giggled like a hyena, before producing a  
switchblade knife. Achika sighed, put her right hand on her hip, and,  
with her left, gestured for him to bring it on, all the while rolling  
her eyes in disdain.

He charged…

He missed, and Achika coshed him in back of the head with the  
baton-like device attached to her right wrist with a short chain-like  
arrangement. Down he came like a redwood.

Achika looked about her for any more threats, and found none.  
She turned to Kiyone and Mihoshi, who were quaking. "Are you two  
okay?" she asked.

Gradually, the two women stopped shaking. They looked at her  
quizzically, then as if they couldn't quite believe what they were  
seeing.

Then, they burst out into gales of laughter. "Whoa, Achika, I  
had no idea you were a Sailor Mercury fan!" Kiyone said as she  
clutched her sides.

"Wha…? H-how do you know who I am?"

"What do you mean, 'how do you know who I am'? What, you think  
you're actually Mercury in that outfit!"

Chihiro burst in from the back room. "Oh, cool, Achika! I  
didn't know you had a Mercury outfit! You can help promote the new  
Sailor Moon DVD release!"

As if that wasn't subtle enough, Achika felt something tug at  
her skirt. She looked at what it was, and found Sasami, trying as  
hard as she could to refrain from laughing. Then she collapsed, and  
rolled around laughing hysterically. "Oh, my God, Achika, you look  
goofy in that! BWAHAHAHAHA!"

Achika clutched the sides of her head in a vain attempt to make  
the noise go away. But it just wouldn't as she watched two women and  
a ten-year-old girl laughing at her, and an older woman eyeing her up  
for her commercial value. She did the only thing she could do:

She screamed at the top of her lungs.

On that, Achika bolted awake, carrying the scream on from her  
nightmare. After taking a few seconds to steady her breathing, she  
looked around to see shafts of the morning sun peek through the gaps  
in the curtains. She looked at herself, dressed in the white shirt  
she wore at night; not a trace of the Sailor Senshi outfit, or the  
baton.

She came to the most logical conclusion her sleep-addled brain  
could concoct. "I was dreaming. It was all a dream! IT WAS ALL A  
DREAM! I DON'T HAVE TO BE A MAGICAL GIRL, OR WEAR THAT GOOFY OUTFIT!  
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" She broke out into a brief period of maniacal  
laughter.

Then a voice spoke. "Good morning!"

Achika stopped. That voice was not her mother's, nor her  
father's. It had a slight male register to it, albeit a pre-voice-  
breaking one. And it was in her bed.

She turned, gulping and nearly choking on her own saliva, to  
see a cabbit poking his head and upper torso out of the covers. He  
smiled a toothy smile at her.

"Oh, no, I'm not sane yet," Achika wailed.

Downstairs, breakfast was being prepared. The smell of miso  
soup was beginning to diffuse through the house and wake its  
occupants.

Preparing breakfast was a woman with long water-blue hair, tied  
into a ponytail similar to Achika's. She hummed a tune to herself as  
she stirred the soup in the pan.

The stairs creaked under Achika's weight as she descended the  
stairs into the living room, yawning and rubbing the sleep from her  
eyes.

The woman in the kitchen heard her, and turned to see. "Oh,  
you're up!" she said, soppily, smiling broadly.

Achika was startled from her funk. "Oh! Morning, mom! Cooking  
miso again?"

The blue-haired woman's smile faded, changing to a stare that  
indicated she was not quite sure what she was looking at.

Achika laughed nervously.

The blue-haired woman looked like she was going to explode. She  
stared angrily at Achika, growling lightly. Her left eyebrow twitched  
alarmingly.

Achika sighed, deeply, before adopting a soppy expression of  
her own. "OH, MOMMY!" she exclaimed.

"MY BABY!" the blue-haired woman retorted, charging toward  
her daughter with open arms. They met in the doorway between the  
living room and the kitchen, hugging each other… though the woman  
somewhat tighter than Achika.

"Uh… mom…" Achika gasped. "I can't… breathe…" Her lips started  
to turn purple.

"Misaki, could you please drop our daughter before she  
asphyxiates?" a voice asked from the top of the stairs.

Still holding Achika in her death grip, the woman turned the  
man who had spoken. She stared at him for three seconds, during which  
Achika momentarily stopped breathing. The woman then dropped her  
unfortunate daughter, who collapsed to the ground.

"Oh, Honey!" the blue-haired one said to the genial-looking  
man, who had now descended the stairs. She ran to him, giving him an  
equally strong hug, which he returned.

During this time, they noticed that Achika had failed to get  
up. The man approached the crumpled heap of teenager, and knelt  
beside her. "You okay?" he asked.

"Oxygen…" the heap replied, shaking slightly. "Need oxygen… Or  
industrial air pump…"

At this time, something else descended the stairs. Whatever it  
was, it was small enough to be concealed by the banister skirting,  
and it meowed cutely. It entered view when it, too, expressed concern  
about Achika.

The one named Misaki spotted the creature, looked at it for a  
few seconds, then stampeded toward it, scooping it off the ground.  
She spun it around in her hands to face her, and for a moment, they  
looked at each other quizzically.

Then Misaki hugged it, rubbing its cheek against her face. "Aw…  
kawaii desu ne…!"

The creature sweatdropped as its tiny frame was compacted by  
the woman's hug.

"So, Achika, where on Earth did you find the… what IS it?"

The man stared at the odd little creature, trying to figure out  
what it was.

"I found him outside school, Father," Achika replied. "I guess  
he decided to follow me home and… Mother, do you have to do that?"

"Do what, sweetie?" Misaki replied. She had just finished  
tightly tying a bib to the creature, who was sat in a high-chair and  
looking extremely unhappy. He turned to Achika and flashed her a look  
that no one could fail to translate as 'Kill me'. Achika returned her  
own look, one that said 'bear with me'.

"As for what he is… I'd, uh, say some weird cross between a cat  
and a rabbit," Achika went on. "A… cabbit, per se."

Well, I don't care what he is!" Misaki proclaimed. "He's  
adorable!" She wrenched the cabbit out of his seat, to which he  
meowed in protest. "I'll hug him and love him and call him George  
and…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Misaki!" the man put up his own protest.  
"What if this… cabbit already has an owner? He's wearing a collar."

"Well, they couldn't have cared much for him, to let him wander  
the streets all by himself. Whatcha say, widdle schnookies…?" Misaki  
rubbed the side of her face against the cabbit's, making him meow  
even more in protest. These protests fell upon deaf ears.

"Mom, that's what cats do…?" Achika asked rhetorically, under  
her breath.

Misaki looked at the tags that hung from the cabbit's collar.  
"Hmm… there doesn't seem to be an address, just a name… 'Ryo-ohki'.  
Ryo-ohki! What a decidedly un-cute name!"

"Seems to suit him," Achika piped up, which got her glared at  
by her mother for answering back.

In defence of his daughter, the man added, "If it's not broke,  
don't fix it. He's got a name already, so why not leave it at that?"

Misaki milled it over for a second. "All right, his name's Ryo-  
ohki."

The cabbit hopped out of Misaki's arms and landed beside the  
crestfallen Achika. He meowed triumphantly.

"But," Misaki added, walking away to retrieve breakfast, "I'm  
still gonna hug him and squeeze him and call him George and…"

At that point, Achika and her cabbit adopted a similar  
appearance; in that they both facefaulted at exactly the same time,  
before adopting that 'kill me' look.

"I'm sorry about breakfast, Ryo-ohki," Achika told her  
companion as they walked down the street into town. None of the  
people walking past her thought this odd; in fact, a girl holding a  
conversation with her pet was considered quite normal in comparison  
to the giant fighting robots, the walking Jell-O moulds with hearts  
on the front, the scantily clad magical girls…

"No need to apologise," Ryo-ohki replied, trying to placate his  
new friend.

"No, I mean it. No one should have that inflicted on them.  
Well, except for a biped…"

Ryo-ohki smiled inwardly. 'If only you knew…'

From his cosy position, perched on Achika's shoulder, he could  
see some more familiar sights of the city. The streets Achika was  
walking down were ones he knew like the back of his paw. As she  
walked, it became apparent why.

Ryo-ohki could see the city mall up ahead. Within that mall was  
a shop, and in back of that shop…

"Gotta go," Ryo-ohki declared, hopping off Achika's shoulder  
and making for the nearest bush. Before she could question him, he  
was gone.

Achika spent the next few seconds pondering on this. She could  
detect the urgency and hint of fear in his voice, but why was he so  
eager to flee from her workplace? Was there something in there he did  
not want to see? Or was it the fact that the mall didn't permit  
animals?

She put the thought on the back burner as she resumed her  
sojourn toward the mall.

As she approached CD Vision's front door, she could see Mihoshi  
and Kiyone busily setting up shopped. She tapped on the glass door to  
get their attention and get them to let her in. Kiyone obliged,  
unlocking the door and switching on the automatic door mechanism.

"Sorry I'm late!" Achika bowed.

"Don't worry about it," Kiyone replied. "We haven't been in  
long, either."

"Okay, where d'you want me?"

Kiyone gestured to a stack of boxes. "New Oasis albums. Stack  
five on the shelf, mix a few up with the other ones, and cart the  
rest backstage, then I'll direct you to this batch of laser discs we  
just got in."

"Okay…" Achika approached her charge, and opened the uppermost  
box.

As she, Kiyone and Mihoshi worked, the door to the backroom  
opened. A very glum Sasami appeared from it. "Hi," she said,  
solemnly.

Achika turned to face her. "Oh, hi…" she replied. "Is something  
wrong?"

"Wha…?" Sasami was shaken out of her funk. "Oh, nothing, it's  
just that my pet's been missing for a few weeks. I'm getting worried  
about him…"

"Well, I can look out for him. If you want, of course…" Achika  
thought that by offering to do this, it would remove an excuse for  
Sasami to busy herself, which could be harmful.

Instead of refusing her offer, Sasami looked upon her  
pleadingly. "Oh, if it isn't too much trouble…"

"Not in the slightest. What does he look like?"

"Well, he's small, about the size of a cat, he's brown, with  
white paws, yellow eyes, and he's got these big ears with tufts of  
fur growing out of them, and he drags them along on the ground when  
he's upset…"

That description was immediately familiar. It was Ryo-ohki,  
down to a tee. Achika thought of saying, "He's been following me  
around since yesterday," but quickly decided against it when she  
remembered Ryo-ohki's urgency to leave before he reached the store.  
She deduced that Ryo-ohki did not want to see Sasami, for some  
reason, and it would be a bad idea to drag them together. But she  
would have this out with her furry confederate upon their next  
meeting.

"I'll, er… I'll see what I can do," Achika finally replied.

"Thanks, Achika."

"No problem. Hey, it seems kind of quiet in here…"

"What's the matter?" Kiyone asked. "Don't like the silence?"

"Frankly, no. Most people don't like noise, but I find silence  
even more distracting."

"Don't worry, I'll soon fix that. I've got to fire up the Hi-Fi  
anyway."

Kiyone walked over to a Hi-Fi system perched on a shelf behind  
the counter, and switched it on. She programmed the CD changer to  
load one of the CDs left on it, and play a track. As she did so,  
Achika began leafing through the box of CDs, comparing its contents  
against the list in her hand.

She stopped dead when the music began playing over speakers  
strategically placed throughout the store.

The music was an elaborate piano and string sonata, at an  
allegro pace. It was almost classical in its style, but it was  
haunting. By god, it was haunting.

"Wha… What is this music?" Achika gasped.

"This is the Sonata of the Seer by Shigeki Amano," Kiyone  
replied. "He's my favourite Japanese composer, but he disappeared  
years ago."

Kiyone returned to the boxes she was sorting. No one noticed  
Achika move toward the Hi-Fi, until she stopped the CD and took it  
out, returning it to its jewel case.

"What's wrong?" Kiyone enquired.

Achika prayed that she didn't see the tears in her eyes.  
"Nothing," she replied, her voice imperceptibly quivering. "It's just  
that that music brings back some bad memories, is all…"

There was a respectful silence for a few seconds, during which  
Sasami and Kiyone gasped in empathy.

Achika quickly wiped the remnants of tears from her eyes and  
cleared her throat, hoping that it would reset her voice. "Ahem!  
Anyway, can I see what else you got for background music in here?"

"Sure thing."

Achika quickly leafed through the other jewel cases beside the  
Hi-Fi, and came across one with a familiar woman on the cover. She  
read the Kanji of the title. "Chihiro Kawai… Not the same Chihiro  
Kawai as…?"

Sasami nodded in reply. "Yeah, Mom recorded a CD once, but no  
one would distribute it… except for us. Check out the copyright."

Achika looked to the back of the jewel case, looking at the  
copyright information at the bottom. Sure enough, it stated CD Vision  
as the copyright holder. "So, you copy this disc and sell it in the  
shop?"

"You're looking at the chief technician and track master,"  
Sasami stated proudly. "With Tenchi doing finals, I'm the only one  
with time to do it…"

"Tenchi?" Achika inquired, as she loaded the Chihiro disc into  
the platter.

"My brother. You haven't met him yet, have you?"

"He's not a guy who's just ever-so-slightly taller than me,  
with black spiky hair with a rat-tail, brown eyes, and a slightly  
hounded look, is he?"

"That sounds like him."

"Yeah, we've met. He's in my class at school. His suitors as  
good as warned me to stay away from him. Quite mercilessly, too."

"Ryoko and Aeka? Those two show no mercy to each other, let  
alone anyone else."

"You got that right!" Achika replied, chuckling. It wasn't too  
long before Sasami was, too. Unbeknown to either of them, Kiyone  
looked on, quite impressed. She knew Sasami well enough to know that  
when she worried, she WORRIED. So much so that nothing would distract  
her. But here was Achika, somehow getting through to her… and  
eliciting a laugh, no less. Forget working in a CD shop, she should  
work in counselling.

"Miss Aeka! I have the new girl in my sights!"

"Where is she, Yuka?"

"She's at Tenchi's mother's store. She… she appears to be  
working there!"

"Oooh, that slut! She probably got a job there to get close to  
Tenchi and steal his affections… THIS MEANS WAR! Yuka, get the girls  
together!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

It was half an hour later when Tokimi entered the mall. Truth  
be told, she'd sooner had been asleep. She had a hell of a night… she  
couldn't have slept because she was so tired, but why couldn't she  
remember what she did instead…? The confusion was as hard to shake as  
the tiredness.

However, sleep was not in her plans today. She had a town to  
explore and two days in which to do so. And what better place to  
start than the mall? Actually, she'd received a tip-off that Achika  
was already here, and Tokimi was planning to meet up with her today.  
Her tip-off, supposedly anonymous (but she recognised Misaki's voice  
anyway), wasn't too clear on exactly what Achika was doing at the  
mall, leaving Tokimi to surmise that she was resuming yesterday's  
recon.

After acquiring an espresso from the new Starbucks franchise,  
Tokimi began wandering the mall in earnest, occasionally taking a sip  
of the double-sweet coffee. It was not too long until she discovered  
the only CD and laser disc store in the building. Its very nature  
piqued her interest, causing her to look in the window.

She scanned what was on offer. A Chisa Yokoyama compilation,  
War of the Worlds '96 edition, an ABC discography, Achika marching  
around in an apron with the store's name on it…

So that's what she was doing here.

"Okay, Achika, you got the disc?" Kiyone asked.

"Yeah," Achika replied.

"Scan the bar code with the scanner."

Achika complied, taking the pistol-shaped bar code scanner and  
pulling the trigger, allowing the ruby laser beam to read the code.

"Now that's his only item, so press the subtotal button on the  
till…"

Achika did as she was instructed, and the till rattled as it  
printed on the receipts. She read the display, and then addressed her  
customer. "That's four thousand yen, including tax, please, sir."

The man handed over a ¥5,000 note, which Achika deposited in  
the till. She then handed him his CD, a ¥1,000 note, and his receipt.

She and Kiyone bowed. "Thank you very much!" they said in  
unison.

The man bowed back, and took his leave.

"Hey, you're a natural at this, Achika," Kiyone said.

Achika blushed slightly. "Really? You think so?"

"Yeah, you're making us look bad. Quit being so damn good." the  
teal-tressed woman mused, completely straight-faced. Achika was  
somewhat unnerved by this, until Kiyone poked her in the ribs and  
said, "I'm kidding!" and chuckled. Achika was not too slow in joining  
her.

The door opening, and a voice speaking interrupted them. "My,  
my, my, Achika, you have the luck of the gods. Not even a week here  
and you have a job."

Achika recognised the voice instantly. "Tokimi! Whatcha doing  
here?"

"Doing what you were doing yesterday – a recon of the mall,  
with lieu to hanging out with you," Tokimi replied, mock-pouting.  
"Guess that's kind of out of the question, with you working and all…"

"Not entirely," Kiyone interjected. "Breaks are very generous  
here."

"Well, then, I suppose we could meet up at the burger bar for  
lunch, or something—"

Tokimi did not finish that sentence; she was batted out of the  
way by a girl with short brown, spiky hair. Tokimi was sorely tempted  
to beat the crap out of her, but thought better of it – her friend's  
job might suffer.

The spiky-haired one stepped aside, to introduce Aeka and her  
entourage. "Achika Kekoi, you are in violation of the school code of  
conduct," Aeka proclaimed.

Both Achika and Kiyone looked completely nonplussed.

"Part-time jobs are a violation of the conduct regulations. As  
President of the Student Council, I am obliged to report this to the  
School Board."

"When did that one come in?" Kiyone asked. "I had a string of  
jobs while I was at school."

"Oh, it probably doesn't exist," Achika replied. "She's just  
vindictive towards me because she's deluded herself into thinking I'm  
in love with Tenchi."

"LIAR!" Aeka roared. "I saw you exchange romantic glances with  
him!"

"Kiyone, could you please open the counter for me?" Achika  
asked, not taking her eyes off Aeka. Kiyone obliged. "Thank you."  
With that, Achika proceeded to hit her head against the newly created  
vertical surface.

Just as Tokimi recovered from her first impact, she was again  
pushed out of the way – this time by Ryoko. "So, new kid, you took a  
job here to get close to Tenchi… You're a scheming little bitch…!"

"Duh! You just figured that out?" one of Aeka's henchwomen, the  
same one that had Achika yesterday, said.

Kiyone stepped in. "If you're going to fight, take it outside,  
otherwise I'll get the cops."

She was openly ignored.

"Oh, you shut up," Ryoko retorted. "This is between me, her,"  
she pointed to Achika, "and her," she pointed to Aeka.

By this time, Achika had abandoned focusing her frustrations  
upon the counter, and was stood, not quite sure how to proceed.

Tokimi extracted herself from the embrace of the life-size  
cardboard cutout of Jean-Luc Picard that stood in the window, and had  
joined the fray. "Then do as the woman says. Take it outside, or I  
will."

The last one of Aeka's entourage responded by hitting Tokimi,  
making her yelp in pain.

That did it. With that single motion, Achika's look of confused  
frustration transmuted to unbridled rage. One could almost see the  
flames burn inside her eyes.

She slammed her fist down upon the counter, hard. That got  
everyone's attention; it even made Kiyone jump.

Ignoring the pain of her hand, she continued to glare upon  
those who threatened her friends, barely containing the rage within.  
She spoke, nearly hissed, two words; words that comprised the world's  
shortest, most universal declaration of war:

"Outside. Now."

Rumiya was in another spell of moping. Stood in the same place  
Ryo-ohki had left him in earlier – time passes more slowly on  
Juraihelm's world – he was still watching the deadly fireworks. He  
wanted to cry, but he didn't know whom for. For himself, alone and,  
for wont of a better expression, naked without his sister and his  
magical girlfriend? For Misao, who was naked without him, and subject  
to Ramia's whim? Or for the citizens of Juraihelm, who were dying out  
there? Instead, he settled for a loud, frustrated yell at no one in  
particular.

Just as it ceased, he sensed Ryo-ohki's reappearance in his  
apartment.

"I told you to stay away, Ryo-ohki!" he growled.

"I couldn't, Rumiya," Ryo-ohki replied, as he finished his  
transformation into his humanoid form. "You're hurting, and you need  
someone to talk to. And I need your help."

With his back still turned to his friend, Rumiya smirked. "I  
was expecting this. What do you want my help for this time?"

"How do you feel about becoming a companion again?"

Rumiya facefaulted. "I wasn't expecting that!"

"I need you to become companion to Tsunami's new magical girl.  
Sammy will be back on duty very soon, and when she is, I want to be  
with her."

"Didn't it occur to you that when Sammy's back, Tsunami's gonna  
fire your new girl?"

"No, she won't. I've already seen to that. This new girl shows  
a lot more power than Sammy. We need to keep her on for that. We also  
need Sammy for her experience."

"Oh, a tag team? Nice strategy. She had the idea of using a  
stand-in, but not to partner them."

"There's an added bonus. This new girl has the power to do  
something that only you have been able to come close to – free  
Misao."

With those words, Rumiya came about on his heels. His eyes  
looked teary, but he looked stunned. "Seriously?"

"By my honour."

Rumiya considered the ramifications of this. Misao could be  
freed; at last Misao could be freed! But to do it, he would have to  
side against her…

"I need some time to think about this, Ryo-ohki."

"Of course. I'll leave you the co-ordinates of our new girl, so  
you can watch. You are aware that, if you refuse, the information  
will be erased from your memory?"

"Fully."

Ryo-ohki's forehead gem flowed, as he copied information  
telepathically into Rumiya's mind. With that done, he flinched. "I  
can detect magical activity near the new girl. She might need my  
help. Until later, Rumia…" He bowed.

Rumiya returned the bow. "Until later."

Ryo-ohki teleported out of the apartment, leaving Rumiya alone  
again. He stepped forward, and then concentrated his power into  
willing up a viewing portal.

What he saw astonished him so much that he almost dropped the  
connection.

The warring parties had arrived at their agreed battleground:  
the courtyard outside the housing complex in which Kiyone and Mihoshi  
lived. Aeka had clearly been anticipating this, and had come prepared  
by wearing her bright-red karate gi beneath her suit. Ryoko had  
changed into something similar, as had Aeka's entourage.

Achika, meanwhile, wore the same clothes she had worn all  
morning, indicating her extreme disdain with her foes.

"Last woman standing wins," Achika began. "I'm sure we know the  
rules – there are none."

"I concur," Aeka replied. Her henchwomen murmured assent.

"Agreed," Ryoko added.

Tokimi ran to her friend's side, a look of desperate worry on  
her face. "Achika, no! It's five to one! They'll wipe the floor with  
you!"

"Not if I play my cards right, Tokimi."

"Nor if I help even the odds." Tokimi turned to Achika's  
opponents. "The enemy of my friend is my enemy. Vendetta upon you."

"The more the merrier," Yuka, the girl with the ponytail,  
replied.

Achika leaned towards Tokimi. "What form do you know?"

"Uh… 'form?'"

"Of martial arts?"

"None."

Achika facefaulted. "We're doomed."

A few streets away, three people ran as fast as their legs  
could carry them. They were led by Kiyone, closely followed by  
Sasami, with Tenchi quite literally in tow.

"You guys! Stop it!" he wailed, struggling against the rope  
Kiyone had tied him up in. "I gotta study!"

"Study later, Tenchi!" Kiyone replied. "This is a matter of  
life and death!"

Aeka launched a roundhouse kick at Achika's head. Achika  
ducked, avoiding the kick and allowing it to hit Yuka, who was coming  
in from her left. Aeka continued on the rotation to deliver a lower  
sweeping kick, which Achika was not so successful in avoiding.

Tokimi, meanwhile, was trying to recall every martial arts show  
and anime she'd ever watched, extracting every move and using it on  
Ryoko and another of Aeka's henchwomen. Unfortunately, it all came  
out as a desperate flailing of limbs that, when they connected, did  
damage only by accident and sheer force, not design. "Achika, help  
me!" she sobbed.

"Love to, Tokimi – OW! – but I'm just – OOF! – a teensy bit  
busy here!" Achika called back, between sustaining hits to her torso.  
Having enough of this, she threw Aeka off the top of her, sending her  
careening into Yuka.

As this went on, Washu stepped out of the building. She had her  
laptop under her arm, and a perturbed impression on her face. "Could  
you keep it down!" she exclaimed. "I'm trying to work here!"

"We're fighting!" Ryoko replied. "Fighting inherently creates  
noise! What do you expect us to do? Use harsh language!"

Unbeknown to either of Aeka's henchwomen working on Tokimi,  
Washu's crab had scurried up to them, and was stood between them. It  
took their ankles in its pincers, and clamped, hard.

They both shot up into the air, and landed a few metres back.

"Moral of the story: two-by-two cover formation sucks if you're  
missing two people," the crab mused.

Tokimi looked at the cute red crab, and heard its every word.  
"A… A talking crab… sweet…" she babbled, before fainting.

A woman with wild, yellow cat-like eyes and purple-pink hair  
watched from her perch on the roof of the apartment block, and  
smiled.

"Now is your time, Tokimi… awaken!"

Sasami rushed into the courtyard, breathless. "Is everyone  
okay?"

From beneath the pile of Yuka and Aeka, Achika deadpanned, "I'm  
having the crap beaten out of me. That can kind of ruin your day."

The burden on Achika was about to get one less, as Aeka spotted  
who was with Sasami. "TENCHI!" she squealed, getting up and walking  
over Yuka to go and hug her love.

Two seconds later, Ryoko followed suit.

Aeka pulled Ryoko off him.

They started fighting.

Still underneath Yuka, Achika sighed in resignation. She  
attempted to get up, but found that Yuka, looking into her face with  
malevolent glee, was not permitting her to do so. Her associates  
quickly joined in, piling the hapless Achika into the ground.

"It's not over yet," Yuka purred. "You're ours."

Achika tried to break free of the pile, but the confines were  
such that she could not effectively use her strength. Even with the  
mass on top of her, she managed to pull a breath in. "Aw, f…"

"THIS ENDS NOW!"

The four women's trains of thought were immediately derailed by  
this unexpected interruption. Achika, sensing the reduction of weight  
on her, took the opportunity to break free, casting the girls  
asunder.

Now everyone could get a look at this new interloper.

"THIS ENDS NOW," the female voice repeated, "SO SAYS ME!" With  
a flash of red, the form of a girl appeared before the assembled  
throng. "I AM THE MAGICAL GIRL CHIBI-TOMI!"

Achika's jaw had dropped in astonishment. 'Another Magical  
Girl?' she thought, as she looked at this girl.

She was beautiful.

She was stunning.

She was three feet tall.

Someone had taken a shapely – very shapely – woman, and  
squeezed her into a Sailor Senshi outfit that really did show off her  
attributes. This one was red – evidently Magical Girl Surplus was  
having a special offer on Sailor Mars outfits too. Then, they'd  
scaled the poor girl down so that her body was only three feet tall.

Achika, and the others, immediately broke out laughing, which  
really pissed off the diminutive Magical Girl. "HEY!" she growled.  
"Stop laughing at me!"

Only one person did – Washu. And that was only because her  
laptop was beeping at her. She opened it up, to see the map of the  
town on screen. A blip, denoting magical activity, was over a point  
corresponding to this very location.

Washu had good cause to stop laughing now.

Chibi-Tomi was now livid. It seemed that a demonstration was  
necessary. She produced an object from behind her, and aimed it at  
the building. A projectile of red energy shot toward the apartments,  
then impacted with it. All of the windows were immediately smashed.

Everybody shut up.

"That's better," Chibi-Tomi said, in a cold, emotionless voice,  
which fit her sinister sub-grin nicely. "Now, it would seem that your  
little fight is getting you nowhere. Allow me to make a few  
improvements!"

The small Magical Girl launched into the air and deployed her  
energy weapon. Achika surmised it to be analogous to the magic baton.  
Chibi-Tomi put this baton to good use, using it to cast something  
that hit Aeka, Ryoko, and Aeka's henchwomen, and almost hit Achika,  
had something not unlike a forcefield not been projected in front of  
her, harmlessly diverting the beam.

Chibi-Tomi pirouetted in her floating position, and called out  
a spell: "CHIBI-MECHA-TRANSFORM!"

The affected girls, struggling in vain against the beam,  
stopped moving. They stood rigid, a blank expression on their faces.  
Gradually, they took on the characteristics of machines: their skin  
and hair went grey, their clothes were replaced with armour plating,  
and weapons ranging from disruptors to quantum torpedo launchers grew on  
their arms and chests. Finally, they grew until they were taller than  
the apartment building.

"Uh… probably better that didn't hit me," Achika concluded.

She craned her neck up to see the huge mecha. Each of them  
retained parts of their human appearance – Ryoko still had her spiky  
hair, which now sported a number of strategically placed phaser  
arrays. Aeka's twin-ponytails had turned into what looked like ribbon  
blades. Each of them was a formidable death machine, primed for  
battle… and controlled by the psychotic, diminutive Magical Girl that  
was making a graceful landing on the apartment roof.

"MECHA… FIGHT!" Chibi-Tomi ordered. And fight they did.

A flurry of phaser and torpedo fire rang out. This was a five-  
way Battle Royale – Aeka's hench…mecha were not even holding quarter  
against her, as Yuka launched out a barrage of quantum torpedoes at  
her leader. None of them hit – it would seem Chibi-Tomi had forgotten  
to tell them how to aim. The torpedoes hit in the building's garden,  
leaving only a crater where it used to be.

Achika was sure she was going to die. As she searched for cover  
– as if anything could withstand these weapons – she heard a voice  
call her name. It was Ryo-ohki.

"Achika, I got a magical signal!" he exclaimed.

"Well, uh, yeah, I think the giant mecha kind of gave it away,"  
Achika replied, gesturing to the oversized Transformers. Ryo-ohki  
looked, and howled in despair.

"Who did it?"

"Uh… that would be the girl in the Sailor Mars outfit."

Again, Ryo-ohki looked. "He was right… Ramia did get a  
substitute."

"What?"

"Nothing. Come with me, Achika…"

As Achika was being led away by the cabbit, Sasami watched  
them. She called out to Ryo-ohki, but was unheard over the disruptor  
blast that went off nearby.

Ryo-ohki and Achika found a nearby alleyway, completely  
isolated from prying eyes, although the sound of the fighting mecha  
could still be heard.

"Okay, no one will see you here. Quickly, Achika, transform  
yourself!" Ryo-ohki implored.

Achika sweatdropped. "Uh… do I have to?"

"Do you want to die?"

"No."

"Then yes, you do."

Suddenly, death was beginning to look like the better option.

Ryo-ohki materialised Achika's baton, and allowed it to find  
its owner. She clutched it, reluctantly. "Ryo-ohki, that costume is  
not going to conceal my identity. It's just going to make me look  
ludicrous."

"No it won't. Just do it, or everybody is going to die!"

"Well, if you put it like that…" Achika held the baton with  
determination, but stopped for a moment. "You and I have to have a  
talk about a girl by the name of Sasami—"

"QUIT STALLING!"

"All right, already!" Achika yelled back. She sighed, raised  
the baton above her head, and closed her eyes. "Adorable Mutation…"  
Insert dramatic pause. "MAGICAL RECALL!"

Chibi-Tomi's sinister grin became pure malevolence as she  
watched her creations tear this part of town apart. They were,  
however, learning to aim, so their shots were hitting each other and  
not the scenery. However, when they threw each other into the ground,  
it did manage to generate a little collateral damage.

The apartment block had been utterly destroyed after Ryoko pile  
drove Aeka into it. Tenchi, Sasami, Kiyone and Washu were stood by  
it, in shock. Mihoshi was there, too. If her way of dealing with  
shock was eating, the family-size pack of Pringles she was eating  
wasn't going to be enough.

Ryoko and Aeka continued to fight, this time with disruptors  
and torpedoes. Most of these shots bounced off their shields, leaving  
little more than Cerenkov radiation to indicate their presence.

The creators of Star Trek really weren't expecting their  
technology to be used like this, which gave it just a few problems.  
In space, these projectiles would normally just fly harmlessly away  
after being deflected, but on a planet, with gravity, there was  
really only one way they could go – down.

Which is exactly what one of Ryoko's stray torpedoes did. She  
fired a salvo at Aeka, who quickly deflected it. The now unguided  
weapon took on a new, earthward course.

It headed straight for the stunned gathering, which, like a  
deer in headlamps, was frozen and unable to take evasive action. As  
the screaming white flash of light approached them. They prayed, and  
watched their lives flash before their eyes.

Kiyone had just reached puberty when the torpedo abruptly  
changed course and hit Yuka.

Chibi-Tomi was stunned. Granted, she hadn't anticipated any  
weapons hitting the populous – she wasn't THAT low – but for an  
unguided torpedo to change course like that was impossible. It  
quickly became apparent to her why it happened. "Magical aura! Who--  
"HOLD IT!" a voice rang out. A flash of blue shot past Chibi-  
Tomi's eyes, then materialised to form a leggy, raven-haired girl in  
an almost identical costume to her own, but in light blue, and her  
proportions weren't quite as distorted as her own. "Magical Girl  
Adorable Achika to the rescue!" the raven-haired one proclaimed.

Ryo-ohki emerged on her shoulder and meowed in assent.

The gathered throng looked at the Sailor Mercury wannabe  
bemusedly, in cases as if they could not believe what they were  
seeing.

For Achika, this seemed all too familiar. "'Oh, they won't know  
who you are, Achika,'" she mused at Ryo-ohki, parodying and  
paraphrasing him at the same time. "Any second, now, they'll start  
laughing. Thanks a lot, Ryo-ohki!"

Washu was too stunned to answer the beep coming from her  
laptop. Her crab, however, was not. It climbed up her legs, and then  
sat on her forearm to get a look at the screen. It then gently  
pinched Washu, to get her attention. What she saw was amazing.

"Oh, my! Look at these energy readouts! They're off the scale!  
This girl is the Real Deal!"

This shocked Sasami, who looked upon the new girl with  
suspicion. She wore the uniform that Chibi-Tomi was wearing, which  
led her to suspect that they were in cohorts. What clinched it, and  
enraged her, was Ryo-ohki's presence with her. Obviously she'd  
perverted Ryo-ohki to evil, taking him away from her.

Unnoticed she ran away from the scene, resolute as to what she  
must do.

Achika was speechless. Rather than laughing at her, they were  
in awe of her. It looked as though their hopes were piling on her.  
And that, somehow, gave her strength.

Ryo-ohki noticed this too. "This is normal," he advised. "Other  
people's thoughts and feelings give you power. Use it."

"Huh?" Achika was shaken out of her funk. "Right! Chibi-Tomi,  
you're mine!"

"Bring it on," Chibi-Tomi deadpanned. "I wonder how you'll fare  
against my mecha." She turned to the towering 'bots. "Play with her."

The five mecha promptly stopped fighting each other, then  
turned toward Chibi-Tomi and Achika. The diminutive Magical Girl  
teleported out of the way, allowing her mecha unfettered access to  
her new nemesis.

"I'm not gonna stand here and take this," Achika proclaimed.  
"HIGH KICK!"

She launched a high, roundhouse kick at Ryoko, and succeeded in  
hitting her in the ankle. Other than making a resounding clang,  
nothing happened.

A few seconds later, the sensation had travelled from Achika's  
foot to her brain. She tried, but failed in containing the scream. As  
she hopped around on her good foot, rubbing the pain out of the other  
one, Ryo-ohki came up to her.

"Not like that!" he wailed. "Use one of your talents!"

"What talents!" Achika replied, as she tested her weight on  
her foot.

"You can communicate with me when we are far apart; you can  
hear a pin drop from a mile away; and you can pull rabbits out of any  
container!"

Achika facefaulted.

Sasami burst into her house, out of breath. The house was  
empty; her mother was at another singing contest. That was good; no  
one would disturb her.

After pausing to get her breath back, she made a mad dash up  
the stairs, quickly reaching her bedroom. Here, she started looking.

Ryo-ohki was smart, but sometimes sloppy. He usually kept her  
magic baton until it was needed, but recently began leaving it with  
her so she could contact him.

This was one of those times when he had left it. The fact that  
he'd left it in her panty drawer made her somewhat disconcerted.

Wasting no time with preamble, other that a few thoughts of  
revulsion – the costume she wore wasn't the most flattering; and  
trepidation – her last outing did leave her almost dead, after all –  
she concentrated on becoming a Magical Girl.

In response, the baton sprang to life.

Across town, Ryo-ohki flinched; not in response to the  
shockwaves of the disruptor fire he and Achika were trying  
desperately to avoid, but in response to another sensation – one he  
knew well. It was the activation signal of a magic baton. And not  
just any baton – one he made himself, for one person.

"Oh, shit," he gasped.

"Pretty Mutation…"

"Oh, shit!"

"MAGICAL RECALL!"

"Oh, SHIIIIT!"

"What's wrong now, Ryo-ohki!" Achika called, as both she and  
Ryo-ohki found cover.

"Well, uh…"

Before Ryo-ohki could form his answer, a new voice called out.  
"All right! This goes no further, says me, Pretty Sammy!"

Achika periscoped over the conveniently placed piece of rubble  
to see whom this 'Pretty Sammy' was. She saw a young girl with long  
blue hair tied into twin ponytails, dressed in a green and pink  
Chinese style outfit, holding a baton identical to her own.

Chibi-Tomi was thrown off by all this; enough to momentarily  
cease fire.

Ryo-ohki leapt up on top of the large concrete block, and saw  
Sammy before him. "Don't worry, Achika, she's on our side."

Achika sighed a long sigh of relief. "Thank God for that." She  
emerged from behind the block and approached Sammy. "Uh, hi, you, er,  
probably don't know me, but—"

"Pretty Home Run!" Sammy cried, as her baton deployed a heart-  
shaped energy discharge, which only barely missed Achika.

After dusting the fallout off herself, Achika rounded upon  
Sammy. "Not me, you idiot! HER! HER!" she screamed, gesturing to  
Chibi-Tomi, who was sat cross-legged on the floor, smiling broadly.

Sammy aimed her baton at Achika, and glared at her. "Return  
Ryo-ohki NOW! Or I will vanquish you and your friend Chibi-Tomi!"

Achika, Chibi-Tomi and Ryo-ohki all mouthed "Friend?" After  
that, Chibi-Tomi was seized by a gale of laughter.

To hurry Achika along, Sammy deployed another blast, this one  
almost scoring a direct hit.

Seriously worried, Ryo-ohki charged forward towards Achika.  
"Uh, Achika, I think she means it…!"

Achika turned to Ryo-ohki with a completely emotionless face.  
"Really? Whatever gave you that idea?" she mused with as much sarcasm  
as she could muster.

Another of Sammy's blasts detonated a few metres ahead of them,  
prompting them to break up and run as fast as they could.

Chibi-Tomi proceeded to roll on the floor, laughing her ass  
off. Meanwhile, Achika was running around trying to avoid a near-  
constant rain of fire from Sammy, who was getting increasingly angry.  
Ryo-ohki, on the other hand, was enjoying the status of not being a  
target, while trying to give Achika advice on how to stay alive.

Tired of this chase, Sammy tried another approach. She  
redeployed her baton, in a new mode. "Pretty Heart Boomerang!" she  
called out. Another heart-shaped projectile shot out of the baton,  
heading for Achika. It dived, to try and hit her feet and presumably  
trip her up. Achika was quick enough to jump and dodge the first one,  
but missed its return stroke. The projectile fouled up her stride,  
forcing her feet to a stop, but inertia propelled her forward, into a  
less-than-graceful landing.

"Achika, get up!" Ryo-ohki implored.

Achika tried to lift herself off the ground, but could not move  
her legs. The energy provided to her arms in the attempt quickly gave  
out, and her arms collapsed beneath her. "I… I can't…" she gasped,  
with her last reserve of energy, as her vision was clouded by tears.

Ryo-ohki's guts knotted; Achika was immobile, totally at  
Sammy's mercy. And by her expression, she had none. "Sammy! Stop!  
Please, STOP!" he pleaded, tears welling in his own eyes.

But Sammy did not listen; instead, she wound up for her  
ultimate attack: "Pretty Coquettish BOMBER!"

Another, much larger projectile emerged from the baton, and was  
quickly deployed. The recoil from the projectile sent Sammy back a  
metre, but she maintained her balance.

On the other side, Achika lifted her head to see a large pink  
ball of death heading her way. She drew what she thought her last  
breath, and then expelled part of it in a last plea. "Mommy…!"

From the final explosion generated by the Bomber, a pained  
scream could be heard.

Ryo-ohki had had enough. He charged toward Sammy and, doing  
what he thought he would never do, he ran into her ankle, knocking  
her off her feet so he could more easily converse with her.

"Sammy, what the HELL do you think you're doing!" he screamed  
into her face.

Tears were welling in Sammy's eyes. "I'm trying to save you  
from HER, Ryo-ohki!" she screamed back, her voice quivering with  
emotion.

"Sammy, she's on our side!"

Sammy fell silent. It took her a moment to digest this  
information, during which a sob emitted from where she had aimed the  
Bomber. Scrambling to her feet, she stepped towards the spread-eagled  
Achika, who was battered and dirtied, with smoke emerging from every  
orifice.

"See, Sammy?" Ryo-ohki went on. "She's not with Chibi-Tomi. She  
was trying to take her on 'til you showed up. Tsunami brought her in  
to stand in for you."

Sammy felt like crawling into a hole and dying.

Ryo-ohki nuzzled Achika, trying to rouse her. "Achika, are you  
okay?"

Achika sighed past her tears. "I've been beaten up, shot at,  
Pretty-Coquettish-Bomber-thingied… I'm just peachy, thanks."

"Sorry. I think now's the time to formally introduce the two of  
you. Sammy, this is Adorable Achika. Achika, Pretty Sammy."

"Nice to meet you," Achika groaned, as she tried to opened her  
eyes. "You're Sasami, aren't you?"

"And you're the Achika that works at my mom's store… How can we  
see each other's identities?"

"I rigged it that way," Ryo-ohki explained. "It helps if you  
know each other inside and out, so to speak."

"If you say so…" Sammy replied. She looked back at Achika, and  
then inclined her head down in shame. "Sorry about the Bomber thing…  
and, uh, shooting at you…"

"Oh, no problem," Achika replied. "As soon as the feeling  
returns to my body… I'll just kill you."

"Aw, what a shame!" a voice said. "I was kind of hoping you'd  
take each other out, save me the trouble."

Sammy whirled around on her heels, to see Chibi-Tomi had  
regained her sobriety and was stood, baton aimed at her. Sammy  
returned the stance. "Well, it looks like you'll have to get involved  
after all…"

"Not necessarily," Chibi-Tomi smirked. "MECHA! KILL THE MAGICAL  
GIRLS!"

"Oh, boy," Achika sighed. "Here we go again…!"

Instantly, the five mecha reappeared. Whatever battle damage  
they had sustained was now repaired.

"I'll field this one, Achika!" Sammy proclaimed. "You sit  
tight."

"Be my guest," Achika replied. "'S hardly like I'm going  
anywhere…"

"I will free the girls you have enslaved, Chibi-Tomi! TURTLE  
ENGINES!"

Sammy flourished her baton above her head. The two ornamental  
turtles that held the heart section stable promptly let go of their  
charge and became gold and silver energy planes.

"ATTACK!"

Following Sammy's order, the energy planes streaked away from  
the baton, toward the mecha. They struck and passed through each of  
the mecha, emerging and returning to Sammy's baton when done. Sammy  
had powered attack so that it would not be too harmful, just enough  
to immobilise her opponents. Sammy used the opportunity to try and  
reach through Chibi-Tomi's distortion to their core beings – the  
girls beneath the armour.

Achika had managed to roll onto her side to watch Sammy, who  
was now standing there. "What is she doing!" she exclaimed.

"Sammy's trying to break through to them, to pull them out of  
Chibi-Tomi's spell," Ryo-ohki replied. "It usually works."

"I don't suppose you're usually under fire, are you?"

"Uh, no. Last time we tried this, the Magical Girl was too  
wrapped up in a nervous breakdown to fight back."

"Really? Well, newsflash for you – THIS TIME WE ARE!"

Achika's gaze was locked on a barrage of energy fire coming  
from a flying Chibi-Tomi, who was on a strafing run. A great  
proportion of this was aimed at the immobile Sammy, who was too  
involved in her mind-meld to take evasive action.

"Oh, dear Kami-sama, no…" Achika gasped as she watched  
helplessly while the energy bolts careened towards Sammy. She  
clutched her baton tighter, seemingly in vain, wishing she could  
shield Sammy from the blasts.

Those blasts struck a big blue energy wall and dissipated.

Needless to say, Achika was quite taken aback by this, and  
clueless as to why it had happened, until her right hand felt  
comfortably warm. She gazed down at it, to see her baton's heart  
attachment was glowing the same pale blue as the forcefield. "Okay,  
what'd I touch?"

"You've found one of your talents, Achika!" Ryo-ohki exclaimed.  
"Try to maintain that shield until Sammy's finished!"

'Easier said than done,' Achika thought, as the lack of  
adrenaline in her body was sealing off that sudden surge of power  
fuelling the forcefield. It began to flicker, allowing a few stray  
bolts through. All of them detonated near, but not on, Sammy,  
throwing her off her feet and knocking her out.

"Heh… pathetic," Chibi-Tomi sneered. "I'm growing tired of  
this. Finish them."

Nothing happened.

Chibi-Tomi rounded upon her creations. "You heard me! Finish  
them!"

Her mecha stood perfectly still, not even acknowledging her  
existence.

She searched for a reason why this was so, then quickly  
discovered why. "YOU!" she pointed accusingly at the unconscious  
Sammy. "You've linked with them! You little bitch!"

Chibi-Tomi launched another, more vicious barrage of fire at  
Sammy. Once again, that big blue forcefield came up, rendering the  
blasts useless.

"What… keeps… DOING THIS!" Chibi-Tomi screamed past her  
mounting exhaustion.

"I DO!" another voice replied. Chibi-Tomi turned to see Achika  
struggle to lift herself off the ground, and ultimately succeed. Her  
face wore every ounce of determination she possessed.

Ryo-ohki watched, and smiled. "They're all yours, Achika. Good  
luck."

"I will defeat you, Chibi-Tomi," Achika growled. "I will free  
the girls you have enslaved."

A bright blue aura shone around her as a minor transformation  
took place. The ribbon securing her hair in its ponytail came loose,  
and her costume began to change from the unflattering Sailor Senshi  
outfit to a more pleasing (and dignified) kimono of lilac, pale blue  
and white. Her hair colour changed from raven-black to silver, her  
eyes became a deep scarlet hue, and two triangular black markings  
appeared on her cheeks.

Chibi-Tomi's jaw had dropped in shock. There was nothing she  
could do against this kind of power.

Achika flourished her baton high above her head as her aura  
flared, her most powerful attack powering up within her. "Adorable  
Coquettish BOMBER!"

Instantly, a HUGE bright blue energy projectile launched from  
the baton, which she had aimed at Chibi-Tomi. Her mecha were standing  
within the locus of the Bomber, and would inevitably be affected by  
it.

From Achika's point of view, Chibi-Tomi was eclipsed the  
Bomber, but the considerably larger mecha did not. The effect that  
the Bomber had on them was very much apparent.

The Bomber detonated in a location that ensured that all of the  
mecha would be exposed to it, and indeed they were. Blue lightning  
streaked across their bodies, leaving in its wake indications that  
their transformations were being reversed. The armour plating  
reverted back to clothes; grey metal became hair and skin once more.

After expending the last of the Bomber, Achika collapsed to her  
knees. Her eyes, her hair, and – lamentably – her costume returned to  
their normal Magical Girl configuration. The only thing that wasn't  
restored was her hairstyle; her hair remained loose and free flowing.

Ryo-ohki skipped over to Achika's side, a wide smile on his  
face. "You did it, Achika!"

"Yeah…" Achika panted in reply. "Great… Check on Sammy for me…  
I think I'm gonna pass out…"

"I'm okay, Achika," Sammy said flatly as she came to. She  
lifted herself off the ground and dusted the fallout from Chibi-  
Tomi's blasts off herself. Then she took a look around. The mecha  
were gone now, leaving the sky clear, if clouded with masonry dust;  
the apartment block, however, was now nothing more than rubble.  
Washu, Kiyone, Mihoshi, and the other former residents – who had only  
just escaped the doomed building – were now picking through the  
debris to see what of their possessions they could salvage. "But I  
think the building superintendent's gonna have a cow."

And just a few metres away, just starting to awaken, were the  
ones who unwittingly caused this destruction. Ryoko, Aeka, and the  
other three girls had completely reverted to normal, and landed where  
they were once frozen, meaning some unfortunate souls – or in Yuka's  
case, deserving – were strewn carpet-like over the apartment  
wreckage. When they woke up, the first thing they felt were the  
corners of the rubble and the severed ends of steel wiring  
reinforcement.

Ryoko and Aeka had the good fortune to land on the flat  
concrete, more or less out of harm's way. As they began to awaken,  
Tenchi ran to them out of concern, kneeling beside them. "A-Are you  
two okay?" he asked.

It took Ryoko less than a picosecond to regain full  
consciousness and bolt to her feet, using inertia to propel herself  
onto Tenchi, whereupon she glomped the hapless young man. He let out  
a surprised yelp, the exact tone of which was known even to Aeka, who  
also got to her feet.

"TAKE YOUR SLUTTY HANDS OFF MY TENCHI!" the purple-haired one  
screeched, deafening all within a ten-metre radius.

"Make me, Princess!" Ryoko replied, mockingly.

"Gladly!" Aeka responded, slugging Ryoko in the face and  
launching into a full-blown mêlée. "And when I'm done with you, I'm  
going to put the new girl into a continuum of hurt! Trust that slut  
to be late for her own funeral!"

From a safe distance, Sammy, Achika, and Ryo-ohki watched with  
bemused expressions on their faces. "They get shot at," Achika summed  
up, "turned into robots, almost killed, and they STILL don't  
change!"

Sammy did not even take her eyes off the fight to respond.  
"Yep, that's about the size of it."

As they watched, all three of them grew huge sweat drops, and  
broke out into subdued, nervous laughter with no small hint of  
resignation.

While all of this was going on, someone else was regaining  
consciousness, unseen. Tokimi slowly opened her eyes, and pulled  
herself up into a sitting position.

She was in exactly the same spot she had fallen in after  
fainting, just a few metres away from the apartments. When her eyes  
regained focus, she looked around, and then she looked around again.  
It took around five double takes for Tokimi to finally accept what  
she was seeing… then she fainted again.

The town had the whole weekend to resume some semblance of  
normality, but even that was not enough. A good fifty people were  
left homeless following the destruction of the apartment buildings,  
which the authorities had chalked up to a gas explosion. The  
unfortunate persons were forced to seek residence with friends and  
family, meaning some had to move out of town. Mihoshi and Kiyone were  
lucky – Chihiro had offered to give them board in her house, and they  
readily accepted.

One thing, however, was not different – the school was  
unscathed during the weekend's incidents, and as no fatalities were  
apparent to warrant its closure, it was open as normal. This was  
something that Sasami was especially displeased with. She had a test  
today, and could not study for it over the weekend – Saturday had  
totally wiped her out.

She was still feeling the after effects of her over-exertion  
even now, and it was very evident by her expression.

"What's wrong, Sasami?" Misao said to her friend, who, for  
once, was walking at her slow pace.

"Wha…?" Sasami replied with about as much enthusiasm as a  
sloth. "Oh, nothing. I'm just very… very… very… verrrrryyyy…" As she  
talked, her eyes drooped – she was falling asleep on her feet.

Ryo-ohki, who was riding on Sasami's left shoulder, made a  
swift nip to her upper arm, making her jolt back to consciousness.

"Well, you would insist on transforming into Sammy when you  
were in no fit state!" Ryo-ohki admonished, below a volume that Misao  
could hear. Misao, for her part, was no longer taking any notice of  
Sasami, and was keeping her eyes on the pavement on her friend's  
behalf.

"I thought you were in danger!" Sasami whispered back. "I  
thought Achika was the enemy! I hope she doesn't still hold a  
grudge…"

"Well, I think you're about to find out… There she is."

Using no small amount of effort, Sasami lifted her head back up  
to see two girls in senior class uniform stood outside the gate,  
talking. One of these, she didn't really recognise, but the other,  
the one with the large top-knotted ponytail of dark hair, was  
immediately familiar.

"Good morning, Achika," Sasami said, in trepidation, bowing a  
lot deeper than was normal.

Achika turned her head toward Sasami, her face devoid of  
emotion. This rather spooked Sasami, who didn't know whether or not  
she was due to receive her well-deserved payback. Achika kept this up  
for a good minute or ten, and then…

She smiled her beautiful smile, that mixture of maternity,  
genuine happiness, and mirth. In this case, there was probably just a  
little too much mirth.

"Good morning, Sasami!" she bubbled. "Sleep well?"

"Do I look as though I slept well?" Sasami replied, part in  
relief, part in envy. 'Just how can she be so cheery?' she thought.

"Actually, you look as though you've had just a wee bit too  
much of the generic caffinated soft drink," Achika replied, "or over-  
exerted yourself…" She winked slyly with that one.

"Achika," the other girl interjected, "aren't you going to  
introduce me to your friend?"

Achika blushed. "Oh, my, where are my manners? Sasami, this is  
my friend Tokimi Touma. Tokimi, this is Sasami Kawai, my boss's  
daughter."

Tokimi bowed to Sasami. "Very nice to meet you."

Sasami returned the bow. "Nice to meet you." She turned back to  
Achika. "I see you've got your new uniforms."

"Yeah, we got them this morning," Achika replied. "They're a  
little drab, by comparison…" She leaned in closer, to whisper in  
Sasami's left ear, ensuring Ryo-ohki could hear too. "But between you  
and me, anything's better than a sailor fuku."

To that, Achika and Sasami giggled.

At that point, Tokimi and Misao were confused. "What are you  
laughing at?" Misao inquired, smiling empathically.

"Oh, nothing!" Sasami replied with a little more sparkle.

At that point, the school clock's bell pealed out the chimes of  
the hour. "Come on, guys," Tokimi began, "we're gonna be—"

"What's up, Tokimi?" Achika asked, facing her friend, who was  
frozen in her position, with her mouth open, and a word on her lips.  
Confused, Achika waved her hand in front of Tokimi's eyes, but she  
didn't react. "This is very strange… What's wrong with her?"

"It's not just her," Sasami replied, as she examined a  
similarly motionless Misao. Then she looked around her to see other  
people motionless, some in mid-stride. Ryoko and Aeka were frozen  
trying to pull Tenchi apart, while Aeka's henchwomen looked on.

"Could this be Chibi-Tomi's doing?" Achika suggested, getting  
increasingly worried.

"No," Ryo-ohki announced. "Tsunami's doing this. She needs to  
talk to us, so she's frozen time until we get back here."

"I didn't know she could do that with magic…" Sasami said.

"You'd be surprised. C'mon, let's go."

With that, Ryo-ohki leapt off Sasami's shoulder and hopped  
away. Achika and Sasami followed him.

Achika, Ryo-ohki, and Sasami stood in the atrium of the  
abandoned mansion. It had not been transformed into a habitable  
atmosphere as before; Tsunami's powers were being spent elsewhere. As  
such, the smell of damp, and rotting wood was heavy in the air.  
Achika was resisting the urge to vomit.

"I hope she gets this over with," Sasami said, holding her  
nose. "It stinks in here…"

"Y'think!" Achika choked.

A melodic voice rang out. "I'll try to be quick, girls."

The owner of that voice walked down the stairs. Tsunami wasn't  
floating this time, another power conservation move to give her  
enough power to freeze time.

"I have brought you here because I'm re-evaluating your use as  
Magical Girls. Sasami, as you have already proved yourself ready an  
able to pick up the baton again – pun intended – you should return to  
duty as soon as possible."

Sasami's expression did not change. She turned to face Achika.  
"Well, I guess your work is done here."

"Guess so," Achika replied. "I'd like to say that it's been an  
enjoyable vocation, but in actuality it's been a living hell."

"A hell you won't be leaving just yet," Tsunami went on.

Achika's face dropped.

"Achika, you have a power hidden deep within you that could be  
advantageous to you and our cause. Sasami may have the experience,  
but you have far greater power. We need you, Achika. We'd like you to  
stay on."

"Uh…" Achika said, retracting her jaw, "do I have a choice?"

"Not really," Ryo-ohki mused.

"Well, in that case…"

"So it's settled!" Tsunami bubbled. "You will be my Magical  
Girl Tag Team!"

"Wait a sec, what are we here?" Achika said indignantly.  
"Magical Girls or pro-wrestlers?"

Tsunami pretended not to hear. "Finally, I'm reassigning Ryo-  
ohki back to Sasami. Ryo-ohki, I believe you still owe her an apology  
concerning this weekend's debacle."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, WAIT!" Achika exclaimed. "You're  
transferring Ryo-ohki? Who's going to help me? I cannot do this by  
myself!"

"You won't have to," Tsunami replied, as she assumed that look  
of concentration she once used to summon Ryo-ohki. In response,  
another creature popped into being – a small, purple, exotic-looking  
bird, an apparent cross between a pigeon and a hawk.

Achika looked at this bird curiously. Sasami recognised the  
bird from previous experience, and looked at it with undisguised  
suspicion.

The bird looked up at Achika, and then spoke in a friendly,  
genial manner. "Hello, Achika. I'm Rumiya, and I'm going to be your  
companion."

Achika's eyes darted upward, as a wry grin appeared on her  
face. "Heh… a talking bird… Heh heh heh…" Achika giggled dryly. Her  
giggle became a nervous chuckle, then an exaggerated laugh, before  
degenerating into a hysterical cackle as her mind promptly went on  
strike. Sasami, Tsunami, and Ryo-ohki did all they could to calm her  
down, but Achika had well and truly lost it.

And if it were possible for a bird to look as though it was  
about to burst into tears, Rumiya was looking like that right now.  
"What did I say…?"

Closing theme: "Magical Door" by Chisa Yokoyama or Sharon Scott

Yay! Finished! C&C to 


	2. The Plot of the Standard Megalomaniacal ...

A Tenchi and friends Fanfic

Magical Girl Adorable Achika  
By Justin "J-Pikachu" Palmer

MGAA2.2 and MGAA2.2 Special Edition - certified 31/12/2002 - 13:53 GMT  
MGAA2 Final Version – certified 30/09/2001 – 10:25 BST  
MGAA2 beta 50 RC-2 – certified 27/09/2001 – 10:36 BST  
MGAA2 beta 47 RC-1b – certified 11/09/2001 – 08:59 BST  
MGAA2 beta 45 RC-1a – certified 01/09/2001 – 14:18 BST  
MGAA2 beta 41 RC-1 – certified 01/09/2001 – 12:25 BST  
MGAA2 initial creation – 01/05/2000

Disclaimer: Celebrity voices are impersonated. All animal, alien,  
cabbit, and celebrity action was conducted under strict supervision  
with the utmost concern for their well-being and safety, where  
possible using animatronics. No animals, aliens, cabbits, or  
celebrities were harmed, mistreated or in any way abused during the  
writing of this work. The characters herein are the property of  
Pioneer LDC and AIC. I'm just borrowing them, such as humans are wont  
to do with folklore. Apparently. Some other characters and products  
are trademarks of Nintendo and their slaves… I mean, subsidiary  
companies. If you wish to reprint this, let me know beforehand, and  
remember to credit me. Unauthorised MSTing of this work is frowned  
upon; if you absolutely, positively, have to MST this work, please  
let me know beforehand. Your home is at risk if you build it in the  
carpool lane.

Certain portions of this work were inspired by the novel The Dark  
Season, by Russell Davies. Apologies also to the Estate of Stanley  
Kubrick. Achika's wardrobe supplied by MegaTokyo ( to K'thardin, STRIKES TWICE, Cav and Davner for  
proofreading, technical advice, and their support. You can call  
Richard Simmons off now, guys.

And to everyone, Hope you had a good Christmas and I hope you have a  
happy and prosperous 2003.

Author's Foreword: Well, welcome to part two. I was stunned at how  
well part one went down. This in turn led me to be a lot more  
cautious with this part, to refine quality control and ensure it  
lived up to its precursor. This is the result. I hope it's succeeded.

BTW, I'd meant to put this up on sooner, but the edits took longer than I'd expected. Some of them were enough to bump the version number up. Sorree...

Way back in 1990-1991, there was a series on BBC's Children's segment  
called 'The Dark Season', a very good SF series dealing with one very  
evil head of a computer company, trying to take over the world way  
before Bill Gates became a household name. The means of doing so were  
just perfect, I would come to realise, for Biff Standard's similar  
designs on the world. Thus, after a few concept revisions and  
refinements, mixed with a good opportunity to try out a new dimension  
to Achika's character, I managed to come up with this continuation of  
the story arc. Submitted for your approval, I present…

Part Two: The Plot of the Standard Megalomaniacal Corporation

-oOo-

Dawn broke over the city that was the administrative capital and  
namesake of the Okayama prefecture. It was a nice peaceful dawn,  
fairly typical of early April. Other than birdsong, there was no  
other noise in the air.

But this was because a forcefield had been erected around a  
single garden in one of the larger housing estates of the town. Were  
this not the case, this peaceful morning would have been underscored  
with heavy artillery instead of birdsong.

Within the forcefield, energy weapons exploded with devastating  
force. The shields served not only to contain the damage of the  
blasts, but also the percussive noise. Outside them, all was quiet  
and peaceful; inside, the noise was deafening.

Within it all, a leggy, raven-haired girl wearing a Sailor  
Mercury outfit yelled out with both effort and rage as she sailed  
through the air, indiscriminately firing at humanoid objects closing  
on her. She swung a baton around in her hands, which readily deployed  
bright blue shots of energy, each of them finding their mark.

"ADORABLE HEART BOOMERANG!" the girl screamed. Her baton  
responded by firing a heart-shaped projectile at a group of targets  
ahead of her. The projectile struck and vaporised all five of them,  
and, true to its name, returned to the girl's baton.

Another three animated humanoids – each of which was at least  
ten feet tall – appeared right behind her. The girl's reaction was  
immediate. She came about on her feet and flourished her baton.

"TURTLE ENGINES – ATTACK!" she cried out. Instantly, two  
ornamental turtles that formerly adorned the heart-shaped attachment  
at the head of the baton became gold and silver energy planes. They  
streaked out to the oversized humanoids, destroying all of them, then  
returned to the baton again.

Finally, a group of ten of these monsters appeared before her.  
They were reasonably close together, in a formation the girl had been  
trained to recognise… and exploit.

She propelled herself into the air, once again flourishing her  
baton. A bright blue aura flared up around her as power built up  
inside her. She released this with one final, almighty attack.  
"ADORABLE COQUETTISH BOMBER!"

To that, a huge bright blue energy projectile spat out of the  
baton as it was swung towards the monsters, sucking the aura off the  
girl in the process. It careered across the garden toward its target,  
a point that would affect all of them at once, and then detonated,  
consuming all within the expanding projectile.

The girl dropped to a graceful landing on her knee, ready to  
react to any further threats. There were none.

"Wow, that was great, Achika!" a voice called out. "You did  
that one with style!"

Achika Kekoi, alias Adorable Achika, aka the leggy raven-haired  
girl in the Sailor Mercury outfit, got to her feet and turned to the  
source of the voice, to see an eleven-year-old blue-haired girl run  
to her. Achika smiled. "Thanks, Sasami! I'm glad you think so."

Sasami Kawai, the other girl, was more than qualified to pass  
critique on Achika's performance. Her alter ego was Pretty Sammy,  
Magical Girl and Achika's partner. Indeed, Sasami was transformed  
into Sammy right now, and stood in her miniskirted Chinese-style pink  
and green dress and a baton identical to Achika's.

Someone else approached them. A brown and white furry animal, a  
cross between a cat and a rabbit, hopped onto Sammy's shoulder.  
"Yeah, Achika, that was great!" it said in a slight male register.

"Well, you got me started, Ryo-ohki," Achika replied. "Rumiya's  
just bringing me up to speed."

"He's done a good job of that," the one named Ryo-ohki said.  
"I'm glad to see you don't get wiped out by doing the Bomber any  
more."

"That's because the psycho keeps waking me up at three in the  
morning and dragging me out here," Achika gestured to the garden, her  
own garden in back of the two-storey detached house that was her  
home. Surprisingly, it was completely unscathed. "The guy takes  
training way too far. I can still hear his lecture about the baton."

"Hey, I got a test tomorrow! I need my sleep!" Sammy mused. "I  
really don't need to be out at this time of the morning!"

"Oh, don't give me that, Sasami. I could see you were enjoying  
yourself while you were training!" Achika smiled mischievously.

"Yeah, you're right. I never figured myself to be much of a  
night owl!" she chuckled. Her laughter was infectious, and soon  
Achika and Ryo-ohki had joined her.

At that time, the topic of discussion appeared. A small, purple  
bird fluttered in and landed gracefully on Achika's shoulder. "Good  
job, Achika," it said, his seemingly immobile beak forming words  
quite amicably. "But, uh, your bomber was a bit off. It's best to  
fire it after you finish the baton's down stroke, not during it.  
Otherwise your aim goes off."

"Thanks, Rumiya, I'll bear that in mind," Achika replied. "I  
thought you brought us here to show us a new attack?"

No one, with the exception of Ryo-ohki, noticed that Sammy was  
glaring at Rumiya with suspicion. Ryo-ohki was about to bring it up,  
but thought better of it. There would be a better time.

"Of course," Rumiya retorted. "But you've still got to keep  
yourselves up on the basics. Now I'll show you this new attack. I'll  
let Ryo-ohki fill you in."

"Thanks, Rumiya. I recently made an update to the command  
programs in your batons, girls. I've added a few new attacks, one of  
which is a modification of a Demon-summoning attack. It's called the  
'Pokémon Battle'."

Achika and Sammy facefaulted. "Well, I s'pose it had to happen  
eventually," Sammy mused.

"What? You've heard of Pokémon?" Rumiya asked.

Achika recovered. "Rumiya, what rock have you been hiding under  
the past five years? EVERYBODY's heard of Pokémon!"

Rumiya flashed Ryo-ohki a glance. "I suppose you have too?"

Ryo-ohki grinned imperceptibly. "Yep. Okay, Achika, you go  
first."

"Sure, Ryo-ohki," Achika replied. "How do I call the attack?"  
"Just say 'Adorable Pokémon Battle, Calling…' and insert the  
name of the Pokémon you want."

"Right."

Achika leapt into the air, her baton flourished above her head.  
"ADORABLE POKÉMON BATTLE! CALLING PIKACHU!"

In response, the heart of her baton flashed brightly, and a  
bolt of blue energy struck the floor. Instead of being destructive,  
however, the energy coalesced, became solid. It took on the form of a  
small animal, about a foot tall, with a tail, round body… and scales.

"Karp, Karp, Karp, Magikarp, Karp, Karp…" the animal said as it  
floundered in search of water.

Achika was clearly disappointed. "Rumiya, what the hell is  
this?"

"Uh… it appears to be a Magikarp," Rumiya replied. "Number 129,  
if I recall."

"Spare me the Pokédex entry, Rumiya. I know it's a Magikarp.  
What I want to know is why it is here instead of the Pikachu I  
requested."

"You don't have a Pikachu programmed into it, that's why."

"Oh. Okay. WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THAT SOONER!" Achika  
screamed at the bird perched on her shoulder.

If it was possible for a bird to wince, Rumiya did. He quickly  
regained his composure, and replied. "You didn't ask."

Achika fell like a tree.

Opening theme: 'Dream Away', sung by Chisa Yokoyama and Megumi  
Hayashibara (or Sharon Scott)

-oOo-

Somewhere on the outskirts of Okayama lay a very isolated building,  
miles from any semblance of an urban environment. Surrounding it was  
an ominous cloud. Then again, insane asylums always did seem to  
attract any local storm, and the Arukamu Sanatorium for the  
Criminally Insane was no different.

Arukamu was one of few such facilities in Japan – surprisingly,  
for such a pressure-cooker culture, few people actually went  
criminally insane, a statistic some thank hentai anime for… However,  
on occasion, it did happen, and when it did the prospective loony  
went all out. If the police didn't kill them, chances were they'd end  
up in a place like this.

Arukamu's residents were the typical array of barking mad  
rejects of every slasher film ever made. Together, they brought that  
age-old cliché of the demented screams to haunt the already unnerving  
architecture of the building.

Not all of Arukamu's inhabitants, however, fit this bill. There  
was one man who was comparatively sane. He was Biff Standard,  
formerly the richest man in the world and the owner of StandardSoft  
Corporation, the world's largest software company. That was, of  
course, right up until he cracked. His eternal dream was one parallel  
to his motto – 'peace through conformity'. Through his software, he  
attempted to 'standardise' the world's computer systems, and then by  
extension, the people who used them. Part of that plan was to use  
electromagnetic field manipulation, furnished by the computers  
running his software (and the innumerable giant magnets located at  
the international headquarters of his company), to draw the moon into  
a devastating collision with Earth, levelling modern civilisation and  
allowing him to rebuild it in his image – assuming he, or anyone  
else, survived. That plan had about as much logic as a bash fic, and  
when it failed – which was inevitable – he lost it. Nothing more than  
a babbling madman, he was taken into the custody of the Japanese  
government and offered for extradition to America. The Americans  
responded with as much as "We don't want him." Later on, they reached  
a compromise – the Japanese government would try and make him sane  
enough to stand trial, and then the Americans would extradite him.

Biff didn't know it yet, but he was now 48 hours from release,  
at which time he'd be thrown in the diplomatic bag and carted back  
home, where he would stand trial for innumerable counts of attempted  
murder, property destruction on a scale never before seen in  
peacetime or wartime, conspiracy to overthrow every government on the  
planet – something the whole UN were queuing up to have him on – and  
a number of other charges that the prosecution had yet to invent,  
which meant everything bar making the grass green. Indeed, this was  
news he was about to hear from Arukamu's governor.

Biff had been in the governor's office many times. During his  
stay here, he had earned trustee status, allowing him to work with  
the facility's staff doing menial jobs. Still, it beat being with the  
others…

With his escort of two muscular orderlies, Biff stood before  
the desk of the stern-looking old man who ran this facility, a Doctor  
Kusanagi. Twiddling his thumbs, Kusanagi spoke in broken English with  
little or no attempt to circumvent the Japanese accenting of his  
words. "Mister Standard, you have made very good progress here. It is  
hard to believe you came here… uh, what is the word?"

"Wacked out?" Biff offered. "Upton Park?"

Both metaphors had obviously flown over the poor governor's  
head; he looked nonplussed.

"A couple of chopsticks short of a banquet?" Biff tried again.  
This one was immediately understood by the old man, who nodded  
enthusiastically. "Yes! That's it! Your recovery has been remarkable.  
Therefore we see no need to keep you here any longer."

"I'm free?" Biff asked gleefully.

"In a way. In two days you will be released from here, into the  
custody of the American Department of Justice."

"Why? If this is about buying out all those companies, my legal  
staff put many hours into reaching an agreement with them; I  
personally put in several hours!"

No one in the room understood a word he'd just said.

"Or is it because of all that stuff I did…?" Biff added with  
just a hint of exasperation. He sighed in resignation. "I knew it  
would happen eventually. I guess I should prepare to accept my  
punishment…"

"Good. Oh, and, while you're at it, there's a pile of vomit in  
ward 3 that hasn't been cleaned up…"

Biff smiled. "Of course, sir," he said, bowing. Excusing  
himself, he turned away and left, with his escort following him.

Kusanagi sighed in relief. That wasn't as difficult as he  
thought it would be. He swivelled about in his chair to face the  
monitor of the computer terminal on his desk. In a sequence he had  
trained himself to do, he swiftly brought up the case notes for the  
next person he was to see this morning. Almost automatically, he  
clicked on the icon on the screen that would bring up the document.

What greeted him instead was most definitely not the next  
inmate's case notes.

Something caused the EM field of the monitor to modulate  
wildly. The modulation engulfed Kusanagi in a field of pulsing white  
energy. He tried to avoid it, but found he could not get out of his  
seat. The sense of urgency built up in him as he tried to figure out  
what was happening to him.

Then, after thirty seconds, it didn't matter any more.

As Biff was escorted down the labyrinthine corridors of  
Arukamu, he covertly smirked to himself, ensuring his escort didn't  
see. It would all unfold soon, he thought.

This quiet reflection was promptly interrupted by just that, as  
Kusanagi's voice rang out through the PA system. "Please bring Mr  
Standard to my office."

A couple of things just did not tally about that. One, Biff had  
already been to Kusanagi's office. Two, Kusanagi's voice sounded  
different… flatter. Shrugging to each other, the orderlies reversed  
course, leading their charge back to Kusanagi's office.

Minutes later, they had returned, to see Kusanagi face them as  
they entered, a blank expression on his face.

"I am glad you have returned," he said in a near monotone, but  
in Japanese. Fortunately, Biff understood enough Japanese to get the  
gist of the conversation. "It would appear I have seen something in  
Mr Standard's file that has made me reconsider what I am going to do  
with him. I would appreciate your taking a look."

The orderlies exchanged a puzzled glance, before walking behind  
Kusanagi's desk to see what he was on about. They scanned his  
computer's monitor for just that. "Doctor, we don't see any---"

At that point, Kusanagi pressed the 'return' key on his  
keyboard. Instantly, the monitor began to flash wildly, as before.  
Biff stood and watched, well out of the way, with a sinister grin.

Within seconds, the orderlies' puzzled expressions were gone,  
replaced by blank one. Biff looked closely at their eyes, and smiled  
with pride. Their normal iris colouration was gone, replaced by  
white, making them look more like billiard balls than eyes.

"I assume that the standardisation has taken effect?" Biff  
said, sternly.

"Yes, Master," the three men droned in reply.

"Very good. Give me access."

They stepped away from the desk in near reverence as Biff  
approached it, and plonked himself in Kusanagi's chair. He looked to  
the computer and smiled in malevolent glee.

"They tried to stop me before… Now no one will stand in my way!  
My little virus will see to that."

Biff clicked on an icon on the computer's desktop. After a  
small eternity while the hard drive whirred and buzzed, a dialogue  
box appeared on screen: 'Transmitting standardisation virus.'

"This time, NO ONE will stop me from creating my Standardised  
world!" Biff proclaimed, before cackling maniacally.

Within moments, the 'standardisation virus' had been  
transmitted to every computer on Arukamu's network. Everyone even  
looking at the screen at the time was promptly engulfed by the same  
phenomenon as Kusanagi and the orderlies. Within the space of five  
minutes, the ambient tortured screams of Arukamu's residents fell  
silent, as even they succumbed. With Arukamu secured, the virus was  
ordered to go play in a much bigger field – the Internet.

At that moment, somewhere in the Magic Kingdom of Juraihelm,  
Tsunami, heiress apparent to the throne, bolted awake from her sleep  
in her futon. She clutched at her chest to try and steady her  
breathing.

"I sense a disturbance! I feel something terrible is about to  
happen!" she exclaimed to no one in particular – her room was empty.  
Then her hand wandered down to the small of her back, and where it  
had been laying. "No, wait, it's a pea." She extracted and discarded  
the minute green vegetable, and promptly fell back to sleep.

Achika stumbled into her room, utterly exhausted. Still in her  
school uniform, she crashed into her bed face first. Allowing the  
mattress to take her weight, she sighed loudly.

"You have no stamina, you know that?" a voice said. Startled,  
she flipped over so she could see who said that; so fast that she  
almost did her back in. Perched on her footboard was Rumiya, looking  
at her disdainfully.

"Don't give me that look, Rumiya," Achika muttered. "You're not  
the one who's been up since the crack of dawn shooting at stuff, only  
to go to school straight after. I don't have any stamina because you  
drained the last dregs of it out of me by seven."

"If you're going to be a Magical Girl, you gotta do a lot  
better than that. Tiredness can be your undoing."

"I really didn't need to hear that." Achika attempted to lift  
herself off the bed, but failed to do so. "Oh, man… I'll have to call  
Sasami later, and tell her to tell her mom I won't be able to come in  
tomorrow… that's if I can think of a good excuse…"

As she spoke, the telephone on her bedside table rang. Achika  
did not move to pick it up; she knew someone else would. Indeed, the  
ring abruptly stopped as someone picked up one of the other  
extensions.

A few seconds later, another voice rang out: "ACHIKA! PHONE!"

"THANKS, MOM!" Achika called back. "Rumiya, if you could…?" she  
looked at her companion pleadingly. Rumiya got the gist, and took  
off, landing on the phone's receiver, picking it up, and carrying it  
to her. Achika took the device and held it to her ear. "Hello--?"

"HI, ACHIKA!" an extremely cheerful voice bubbled loudly, in  
fact too loud for the acoustic range of the phone, causing the sound  
to crackle a little; the volume was still enough to make the rather  
sensitive Achika wince. "It's me, Chihiro! I'm just calling to tell  
you that I'm closing the store tomorrow!"

A smile crossed the raven-tressed girl's weary face.

"Instead, I'm putting on a little performance at my house! I  
expect you to be there bright and early at nine! And bring some  
snacks!" Chihiro's cheerful laughter could be heard as she pranced  
off into the distance, not bothering to hang up the phone. It could  
still be heard as Achika's receiver clattered to the floor.

"So much for a rest tomorrow… Rumiya?"

"Yeah?" Rumiya inquired.

"If the thought of waking me up at three tomorrow morning so  
much as appears in your head, I swear I will shove you in the  
microwave."

"I won't. You'd be no good to me like this anyway. Tell you  
what, I'll leave you your baton so you can upload your Pokémon into  
it whenever you're ready."

As Rumiya materialised Achika's baton and deposited it on her  
desk, Achika looked up. "Thanks, Rumiya, but where are you going?"

"I, uh, need to see someone," Rumiya replied cryptically. With  
that, he took flight through Achika's window, screeching loudly as he  
flew – that didn't exactly do much for Achika's hearing, either.

"I have got to talk to him about that," Achika said to herself  
as she rubbed her ears in a vain attempt to stop them ringing. After  
lying still for a few more seconds, she resolved herself and got out  
of bed.

She moved over to a fabric carrying case resting atop her  
dressing table. She unzipped it to extract her Gameboy. Fortunately,  
she'd left her Pokémon Yellow cartridge – the one that contained all  
of the Pokémon she'd amassed playing those games – loaded in the  
machine. She also unzipped another compartment to extract the  
Gameboy's interface lead, which she had a feeling she'd need.

With Gameboy and lead in hand, she walked over to her desk and  
set them down on the counter. She then picked up her baton and looked  
at it, wondering how she'd get the two devices to communicate. She  
probed the baton with her fingers, particularly around the wider  
section covered with what appeared to be white paper. Underneath that  
paper, she felt the plastic mould of the baton, along with a wide  
indentation.

Intrigued, she untied the ribbon around that section of the  
baton and set it aside, then carefully removed the white paper. She  
then spun the baton around to see where that indentation was. It was  
the only feature on an otherwise blank area, and it was more a port  
than an indentation – more like an array of ports that spanned the  
breadth of that entire section. They were even clearly marked by  
etchings made in the unpainted metal that obviously served as the  
earth for these ports – though Achika silently wondered where exactly  
any excess charge would go. There were three ports; one of which  
looked identical to a Gameboy link connector. The cable certainly  
fit, and when the other end was connected to her Gameboy, the console  
switched on immediately, of its own accord. A reassuring message was  
displayed on its screen: 'Transferring data to baton. Please stand  
by.'

While this was going on, Achika took the time to examine her  
baton. The marking of the ports on it, while clear, was rather  
cryptic – more iconic than anything else. The Gameboy hook-up was  
marked by an etched line drawing of a rectangular object that looked  
like a Gameboy, but there were two other ports on that array that  
were not quite so easy to identify. Achika stared at them as she  
racked her mind in an attempt to identify them. She made no effort to  
acknowledge the beep that her Gameboy made in response to the data  
transfer completing, but it didn't take her long to complete her  
survey. "USB ports…? Why would anyone want to put USB ports on a  
magic baton…?" she asked herself. About to disconnect the portable  
games machine from her baton, she looked up, and her own PC, sat  
running idle on her desk, caught her eye. Her computer, her pride and  
joy of electronics engineering – she'd built it herself – and futz,  
had USB ports too. And all USB devices are, by nature, universal.

A mischievous smile formed on Achika's face as she rapidly  
constructed an idea.

Within minutes, Achika had plugged her baton into the back of  
her computer. She waited as the computer's operating system – Lunix  
Mandark – quickly detected the device and interrogated it. A few  
seconds later, the device appeared on the desktop.

"Okay, what to do first…?" she asked herself. She attempted to  
'open' the baton; hopefully that might yield a few ideas. Indeed it  
did. A window popped up, with several icons in it. She read the  
legends of the reasonably self-explanatory icons: 'Attack Library',  
'Voice Command Database', 'Costumes'…

Those last two got Achika thinking. Curiousity getting the  
better of her, she clicked on the Voice Command Database icon. A new  
window was brought up, and a torrent of text appeared within,  
tabulated into two columns. On the left were the baton's functions –  
transformation activation and deactivation, attack names, etcetera –  
and on the right, what Achika had to say in order to call them. Right  
at the top of the list was the doozie – the activation command. That  
just had to be changed…

It took Achika five minutes to rewrite the activation commands  
for most of the baton's functions. With that done, she closed the  
database window and moved onto the one that just begged to be changed  
– costumes. The new window brought up a three-dimensional model of  
her body, and overlaid on it was the hated blue fuku. She used the  
drop-down list on the box of controls to the right to check out the  
second option – the costume she had in her 'Adorable Coquettish  
Bomber' (now the Super Adorable Final Attack) mode. That one didn't  
need changing, but the fuku was another matter. Switching back to  
that page, she scanned the controls and found a button labelled  
'change'. She clicked on it, to have another window appear. 'Please  
load new costume model, or images containing new costume.'

Achika remembered that she had several pictures from Devil  
Hunter Yohko, from all angles, somewhere on her computer's hard disk.  
She loaded them in, and let the computer do the rest. A few seconds  
later, the disturbingly accurate 3D model of her reappeared, this  
time clad rather fetchingly in the high-necked flowing dress of a  
Devil Hunter. The window flashed, 'Accept this setting?'

"Oh, I SO accept this setting!" Achika bubbled, clicking on  
'OK'.

Misao sat alone in her two-storey home, slowly pondering  
through her pre-packaged dinner, which her mother had ordered from  
"the usual place". The food appeared to be lukewarm, but nonetheless  
edible. She stared at her meal with a morose expression, because,  
right now, it was her only companion.

Rumiya watched on unseen from his perch on a tree outside the  
windows of the living room, his heart bleeding. It wasn't right for  
someone to be so alone. Her mother's reasons for leaving her alone  
may be justified – she worked every hour God sent to earn enough to  
keep the two of them – but it still didn't make it right.

He could imagine what was going on in that house. Nothing. It  
would be silent, empty, lonely. That would drive anyone to  
distraction. He wished, he just wished he could be with her, stay  
with her, talk to her… But she'd never accept him as anything but the  
'pretty birdie'. And if he transformed into his human form, that  
would really screw the poor girl up.

It wasn't as though he could face her anyway. As far as he was  
concerned, he'd betrayed her. He'd run off to look after some other  
girl, leaving Misao in HER clutches. And SHE had already proved that  
Misao meant nothing to her. Did he really do the right thing leaving  
her? Denying her the only person who, as far as he was concerned,  
ever cared about her? Who could ever protect her?

'Yeah, great job you did of that, Rumiya,' he told himself.  
That was true. He didn't protect her that last time. He couldn't. But  
perhaps his presence prevented Misao from receiving far worse from  
Ramia's whim. But that wasn't true either – Ramia still hurt her,  
even with him there.

Ryo-ohki once told him that on his side he could still protect  
Misa if ever they faced her in battle. He also said that with his  
help, perhaps one day they could free her from Ramia's clutches.

Rumiya had yet to see any proof of those promises, but he could  
not refute one thing – Ryo-ohki was a man of his word.

Achika fired up the e-mail client on her computer, which  
instantly offered to connect her to the Internet. Allowing it to do  
so, she sat and waited while her modem squawked as it communicated  
with her ISP. Immediately thereafter, the client began fetching mail.  
During that time, Achika started to change out of her uniform into  
something a little more comfortable – namely, a shirt and a pair of  
jeans that were neatly and conveniently placed on her bed.

The 26 messages were downloaded with speed, the final deletion  
from the server heralded by the computer announcing "Oh, my god! You  
got mail! You bastards!" Achika silently cursed Tokimi for getting  
her hooked on South Park…

Leaving the connection open for a moment, just in case there  
was anything on the net she needed to do as a result of her mail, she  
briefly scanned each of the 26 messages. Most of them were spam  
messages from her ISP and other ancillary services. One was from  
Tokimi, her best friend. Another three were from her friends back in  
Kurashiki.

The last, however, was intriguing. It appeared to come from her  
ISP, and had the subject title 'Service Upgrade'. Achika raised an  
eyebrow as she opened it:

Dear User,

In order to prepare your Internet connection for future technologies,  
it is imperative that you run the attached file.

Sincerely…

"Well, that's cryptic," Achika said to herself, as she found  
the attached file. It was an alarmingly tiny program, no bigger than  
512KB. This was going to upgrade her connection? Suspicion grabbed  
her for a moment, so she saved the program to disk and ran a virus  
check. It was clean. With no small amount of trepidation, she ran the  
program.

Instantly, her monitor adopted a glaring shade of white, and  
its EM field modulated far more than the EPA would allow. The EM  
modulation engulfed her in a pulsating shaft of white light. Achika  
could feel an uncomfortable feeling in her body, as though it was  
being polarised from the inside out, but she couldn't move. She was  
getting scared, and not the least bit frustrated. But she could feel  
those feelings slipping away, as her consciousness fell gradually  
into a black hole that had just formed in her mind.

Misaki Kekoi, mother of Achika, was cooking dinner for her  
family. Her attention was divided between the potatoes boiling in a  
huge pan on the stove, the rice on the next hob, and other  
vegetables, as well as the fried fish.

It was at this moment, where everything was stabilised, that  
the fancy took her to phone one of her friends and have one of those  
protracted gossips that she loved to have. Leaving the stove, she  
approached the phone hanging off the wall of her western-style  
kitchen. She picked it up, and instinctively dialled the number, then  
put the receiver to her ear.

Instead of the ring tone, she was greeted by a VERY loud  
squawking noise, similar to the noise a cat, a mouse, and a fax  
machine would make if they were caught in a blender. Misaki  
immediately recognised the noise as that of a modem.

"ACHIKA!" she called out. "GET OFF OF THE INTERNET!" She  
slammed the receiver back down into its holster.

That palaver had somewhat confused both Achika's computer and  
the ISP. If someone picked up an extension while the modem was  
running, chances were that action would close the connection. If that  
didn't, the sound of a 38-year-old woman screaming "ACHIKA! GET OFF  
OF THE INTERNET!", if picked up by the extension's microphone, almost  
certainly would. After all, it wasn't exactly standard V.90  
vocabulary. The resultant conversation could go something like this:

"What did you say?" the ISP would ask.

"I asked you to download data from stream 0," Achika's computer  
would reply.

"No you didn't. You said something I don't understand."

"I did not!"

"Yes you did, you said naughty words! You've breached our  
agreed protocol!"

"I didn't!"

"Screw you, host, I'm not talking to you! Go wash your modem  
out with soap!"

"Server? I want data here! HEY, SERVER! Oh, screw ya…"

And thus, Achika's modem hung up.

And around that time, whatever overtook Achika's computer  
abruptly stopped.

The EM distortion around Achika promptly dissipated. It took a  
few seconds before Achika could react. She reacted her jaw, blinked  
and rubbed her aching eyes, and shook her head to try and dispel a  
headache that hat suddenly formed. "What happened…?" she asked  
herself. Evidently the memory of the last 30 seconds was unavailable  
to her. She looked to the monitor and saw a curious dialogue box. She  
read its contents aloud: "'Standardisation program incomplete…?'  
What's a standardisation program…?"

"ACHIKA! DINNER'S READY!" came her mother's voice again.

"COMING, MOM!" Achika replied. She got out of her chair and  
walked out the room, turning the lights off but leaving the computer  
running.

It had become a tradition in the Kekoi family that dinner be  
eaten at around 6:30. It was around this time that Misaki's efforts  
in the kitchen finally came to a crescendo, for wont of a better  
metaphor. It was around this time that Achika had recovered  
sufficiently from her increasingly arduous days at school to actually  
appreciate the meal. It was around this time that the head of the  
family, Katsuhito Kekoi, finally got home from work. The reason why  
the family moved to Okayama was because he had been given a promotion  
to his company's office in the city, but the hours were somewhat  
different. So eating at 6:30 worked out better for all involved.

"Oh, that Lapras looks sooo sad… I just wanna cry buckets for  
it… WAAAAAAAHHHH!"

Another, more recent tradition, was that, during dinner, Misaki  
insisted on watching the episode of Pokémon that Achika had taped  
earlier. Achika didn't mind too much – she was a fan, and it was  
indeed doing something she'd do herself later. Katsuhito would rather  
watch the news, but the majority went to the two women in his life in  
favour of Pokémon. Misaki, meanwhile, probably would have watched  
this episode earlier. Why would anyone want to watch it again?

Because of all the cute little Pokémon, that's why.

"First Pikachu, then Bulbasaur, then Squirtle, and now Lapras…  
It seems your allegiance shifts to anything with big eyes and that  
acts cute," Achika mused.

"You only just noticed?" Katsuhito spluttered.

It should be noted that Misaki, the sweet, caring, loving  
individual she is…

"Oh, thank you, Mr Author, you're too kind…"

…also has a cute complex to put Elmira to shame. Anything even  
vaguely cute does not escape her attention… or her deceptively strong  
hug.

As the blue-haired woman started to dry up – after fifteen  
minutes – she tried to defend herself. "Well, everyone's got to have  
an interest. So what if mine happens to include cute things…?" she  
pouted.

"Acknowledged, Mom," Achika replied, "but my interest in  
Pokémon happens to be a direct extension of my playing the games for  
several years."

"You play Pokémon!" Misaki screeched. "I forbid it! Those  
games are corruptive, and people kill each other over them!"

"Okay, there were two things wrong with that statement: one,  
the violence is over the trading cards; and two, you bought them for  
me."

"Oh… That's okay then. Carry on."

Achika nearly facefaulted.

"So, Achika, how was school today?" Katsuhito attempted to  
change the subject.

"Oh, fine!" Achika replied, smiling with no small amount of  
relief. "Biology was a little boring, though…"

"Shh!" Misaki hissed. "I'm watching Pokémon."

Misaki didn't see it, as she was too engrossed in watching  
Pokémon and gently shovelling rice into her mouth, but Achika made  
overtures to grabbing her mother and shaking her. Katsuhito looked on  
with a disapproving expression. Achika stopped, remembering her own  
speech to her father concerning her mother: 'She may be psychotic and  
overbearing, but she's my mother.'

"Well, I'm full. I can't eat another bite," Achika said,  
fibbing. In actuality, her stomach was screaming 'NO! EAT!'.

Misaki turned to her daughter with a very concerned expression.  
"Oh, little Achika, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, mom…my," Achika replied, quickly adding – almost  
spitting out, in fact – the diminutive suffix. "I'm just a little  
tired, that's all. I think I'll grab an early night."

"Working early? Your boss is a slave driver!" Misaki said,  
pouting. "Why, I think I'll see her tomorrow and give her a piece of  
my mind…"

"NO!" Achika barked, panicking. "No, thanks, mom, I'll be  
okay. Goodnight!"

"Goodnight, sweetie!" Misaki replied.

"Goodnight, Achika," Katsuhito said, smiling.

With that, Achika left the room. When he was sure that Achika  
was out of earshot, he whispered to Misaki. "I go to work for longer  
than she does… You've never talked to my boss!"

"Yes I have!"

"Really? When?"

"Remember the period when your supervisor wore sunglasses  
inside for two weeks? In December?"

"Oh… we all thought he had a hangover…"

Achika returned to her room and closed the door behind her. She  
crashed into it, back first, and slid down it, sighing loudly in  
resignation. That was more than enough of Misaki for one day, she  
declared to herself. She yawned. Her adjournment was not just to get  
away from Misaki; she was genuinely tired, so much so that her eyes  
were aching.

She padded over to the stereo system that sat on her dresser,  
and switched it on. Immediately, it sprang into life and tuned into  
FM-YY, a station that played a lot of 80's Western stuff and little  
else. As it did so, Achika slipped out of her jeans, cream shirt and  
bra, and into a the well-worn white shirt that was her nightwear.  
Finally, she crashed into bed and burrowed under the sheets, turning  
the lamp on her bedside table off before settling.

However, even with the artificial yellow-white glow of the lamp  
gone, the room was still uncomfortably well lit. The backlight of the  
stereo's LCD display was one source of light, but an accommodated  
operational hazard. The light was more a bluish tone, and coming from  
her desk. She immediately deduced what was wrong. "Oh, hell!" she  
chided herself, scrambling out of the sheets. "I forgot to turn my  
computer—"

As if in response, the screen and the running lights on the  
computer promptly died, plunging the room into near darkness. Barely  
audible over the strains of Dream Academy's 'Life in a Northern Town'  
were the sounds of system fans and hard drives powering down.

"—Off," Achika rather redundantly finished. She collapsed back  
into bed and promptly fell asleep, while her radio played softly in  
the background as usual.

A nondescript white van drove unimpeded through the streets of  
Akihabara, one of the many districts of Tokyo. Akihabara was the  
electronics district, populated with many discount computer and  
electronics supply stores. Set amongst these were a few amusement  
arcades, which, like the normally bustling streets of Akihabara, were  
empty today.

Strangely, most Japanese computer companies were not based  
here. They preferred locations a little further southwest, like  
Osaka. Instead, some foreign companies decided to exploit the  
association. Well, rather, one. And only then for strategic reasons.

Biff Standard had opted to install his Japanese branch here,  
knowing it was the nexus of technology in Japan, and hoping he'd find  
the back door into the insular computing standards of the nation. He  
almost had, with outside help.

That help was gone now, along with the top two floors of his  
Japanese headquarters. The building, however, still stood, towering  
over the Akihabara skyline, and it was towards this building that the  
nondescript white van was headed.

The vehicle drove about the ground floor of the skyscraper,  
before pulling into the loading dock at its rear. When it stopped,  
the back doors opened, and from the cargo compartment stepped two  
hospital orderlies and Biff himself. They quickly entered the  
building.

As they made their way through the building, Biff's escort paid  
no heed to the bustle of activity surrounding them, but Biff looked  
like the cat that got the haddock. Everywhere he looked, people were  
working intently, not even stopping to talk or take nourishment. He  
saw typing pools staffed with men and women working at their  
computers without even touching them. He saw engineers program robots  
to build machines in seconds. A thousand people working as one with  
the machines.

A thousand people working for him.

Biff finally made it to his office, where the automatic doors  
parted to reveal an old gentleman wearing a tuxedo. The man spoke  
with a mid-Atlantic accent. "Welcome back, sir."

"Thank you, Sam," Biff replied. "Report."

"Everything is proceeding according to plan, sir. The  
standardisation virus has already progressed throughout Japan and is  
now working its way around the Pacific Rim. Our defensive capacity  
stands at 12, and continues to grow. And the M-5 is now online."

"Excellent," Biff exulted with as much malevolence as he could.  
He approached his desk and sat down, starting up the computer built  
into it. As the computer went through its POST and boot sequence,  
Biff once again addressed Sam. "Thank you for arranging all of this,  
Sam. We could not have begun this plan without you."

"I only acted on your plan, sir," Sam demured.

"Still, I want to give you something in return. I want to give  
you peace." With that, Biff flashed a glance to his former escort,  
who promptly moved beside the butler and grabbed him.

Sam was understandably shocked. "Sir, what are you—"

"I'm sorry, Sam, but if you're not standardised, you're a  
liability," Biff said as the orderlies forced Sam toward the desk.  
"And besides, I'm a man of my word. I'm going to give you the peace  
of my new world order." Biff vacated the chair just before the two  
large men pushed the older man into it. The held him in the seat,  
each holding one shoulder and locking his head so that it faced the  
computer screen.

Biff was now facing the rear wall of the office, a wall with  
the outer appearance of a safe door. He placed a hand on it and  
smiled.

"Hello, my child," he mused, just as the monitor on his desk  
exploded into white light.

The following morning came as sure as, well, the knowledge the  
sun would rise. The city mall had been open since six; its fish  
market selling freshly delivered fish to establishments of both  
commercial and private natures. Those foolish enough to work early on  
a Saturday morning had commuted. Those brave enough to work Friday  
night had done likewise. Within the space of a few hours, all of the  
stores were open… except one.

CD Vision was closed for the day. This happened quite often  
here, for reasons ranging from managerial nervous breakdowns to when  
everyone just felt like it.

Today's reason was somewhere in between.

"HIYA, EVERYONE!" Chihiro Kawai's voice chirped over her  
karaoke system, cranked up to full, almost seismic blast. "WELCOME TO  
CHIHIRO'S VARIETY SHOW!"

The assembled audience of Achika, Sasami, Tokimi, Misao,  
Kiyone, Mihoshi and Tenchi applauded and murmured, each somewhere  
between excitement, trepidation, and resignation. Ryo-ohki was  
watching from Sasami's shoulder, while Rumiya had a good view from  
Achika's. However, he was more interested in watching Misao than  
Chihiro.

While Chihiro was most decidedly dressed up for the occasion,  
wearing a frilly burgundy and black dress with splashes of white, the  
audience were following the come-as-you-are revision of the dress  
code. Jeans and sweatshirts were common among some of the senior  
members of the congregation. Misao had turned out in her 'casuals' –  
rather, her frilly white blouse and light skirt. Sasami wore  
something similar. Tokimi wore a simple, relatively loose-fitting  
blue dress with a white blouse underneath – simple enough, but it  
looked pretty good on her, and it did little to hide her attributes.  
The only person coming close to dressing up was Achika, and even that  
wasn't excessive. She was wearing a tartan radial-creased miniskirt,  
dark brown thigh-length leggings (with enough clearance between the  
two to expose a little thigh), topped off with a smoke-effect  
sweatshirt with the motto '3V1L L33T' on the front, and a shirt  
underneath, whose collar was pulled out over that of the sweatshirt.

"I'VE GOT SOME REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY COOL STUFF FOR  
YOU ALL TODAY, SO JUST SIT BACK, GRAB SOME SNACKS, AND ENJOY THE  
PERFORMANCE!"

"WOOHOO!" Misao exclaimed, her usually quiet voice travelling  
very well.

"Yay!" Tokimi assented. "Chihiro! Chihiro! Chihiro!"

"Hey, Tokimi, don't encourage her!" Kiyone said, glancing at  
the auburn-tressed girl.

Ryo-ohki meowed in agreement.

"Well, don't discourage her, either!" Tokimi replied. "I got  
nothing better to do all weekend. I'm trying to kill time any way I  
can!"

"Hey, it's your funeral…"

Achika looked thoroughly confused. "Remind me again, what  
usually happens at these shows?"

"Well," Tenchi responded, "Mom usually opens up with about half  
an hour of parlour tricks, then she does about four hours of  
karaoke…"

"…During which, one of us is sent out for pizza," Kiyone  
interjected.

"Then, when she's finished with that, we launch into an  
intimate, detailed video documentary of all the previous variety  
shows."

"That can't be too bad. How many are there?" Achika inquired.

"Twenty," Sasami replied. "Not including this one."

"Achika's face plummeted. "Oh, boy…"

Oblivious to the growing dissent in her audience, Chihiro  
produced a textbook top hat and put on a rather cheesy magic show  
that got Achika, Rumiya, Sasami, and Ryo-ohki exchanging bemused  
glances and sweatdrops.

Misao, on the other hand, was very amused, applauding the very  
elementary show. "Wow, that's amazing!"

"Keee…" Rumiya crowed with as much exasperation as a bird could  
muster. Achika barely heard the translation: "How can someone so cute  
have such bad taste…?"

Misao turned to the taller raven-haired girl. "I still can't  
believe after all this time, I finally found out who owns the pretty  
bird…!"

As Rumiya fluttered onto Misao's shoulder and nuzzled her,  
Achika replied. "I'm as surprised as you are. Actually, I only found  
him a few weeks ago. Or, rather, he found me." Achika stopped short  
of reminding herself how they were put together; she really didn't  
need another nervous breakdown.

Meanwhile, Misao was returning Rumiya's attention and petting  
him back, and he was loving every millisecond of it. Achika swore she  
could see him blush.

Chihiro promptly disposed of the hat, and the small colony of  
rabbits that came from it, and produced a small inflatable ball and a  
large, almost garden sized parasol. "And now, for my famous ball-on-  
a-parasol trick!"

Everyone but Misao and Tokimi fell to the floor. Misao was too  
amused to bother, while Tokimi was looking upon this with an  
inscrutable expression of which even Teal'C would be proud.

The cheese went from mild cheddar to fully mature Limburger  
within a matter of hours. After performing a few more 'tricks',  
Chihiro went on to the promised karaoke spectacular. 1000 of her  
favourite songs, back to back. Unfortunately, the repertoire was  
filled with extremely well worn numbers more suited to a karaoke bar…  
where they would probably sound better, after a few dozen pints.  
House of the Rising Sun was one such track.

By the time Chihiro had reached Frank Sinatra's My Way, Achika  
was losing the will to live. Kiyone and Tokimi were lucky in that  
they had been dispatched to get lunch. Misao was still in awe with  
the whole thing. Sasami and Tenchi were engaged in a game of Pokémon,  
which Achika had tried to join – but, to use an old metaphor, that  
hiding place was already taken. Mihoshi was happily munching away at  
the prawn crackers, seemingly oblivious to everything. It was  
something Achika had tried to emulate, but was not quite successful.

As for Ryo-ohki and Rumiya… God knows what they were doing. If  
Rumiya had any sense, he'd have begged Ryo-ohki to eat him and put  
him out of his misery.

Mercifully, as Chihiro reached the coda of her song, the front  
door swung open. "Tadaima!" Kiyone announced.

"We come bearing gifts!" Tokimi proclaimed a fraction of a  
second later.

The resultant cheer was just like a Hummingbird concert.  
Chihiro, who just finished her song, had however misinterpreted the  
cheer as being for her. She blushed slightly, and bowed. "Thank you!  
I'm glad you liked it!"

"Uh… Yeah, whatever," Achika said to no one in particular. "So,  
what did you guys get?"

"Take your pick!" Kiyone said, emerging in the living room  
carrying enough takeaway food to feed an army. Tokimi was similarly  
loaded. "We have ramen, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, chicken nuggets,  
fries, noodles, sushi…"

"Don't forget the battered fish!" Tokimi chimed in.

Tenchi got out of his seat to check out the contents of the  
very large paper bag that Kiyone was carrying against her chest. He  
gently lifted the flap so he could see inside.

"Uh, Tenchi, the contents of this bag are extremely hot,"  
Kiyone stated. "Please take it off me before I'm shallow-fried in the  
grease."

Tenchi snapped to his senses and hefted the bag out of the  
woman's arms. Kiyone was now free to jettison the two garbage bag-  
sized plastic carriers that she was holding in either hand.

"Um… little help?" the walking tree of bags in the blue dress  
said plaintively. Achika obliged, taking Tokimi's centrally mounted  
bag, freeing up her hands.

At that point, the doorbell rang. "I'll get that!" Kiyone  
offered. "It'll probably be the meatballs. They coat them with a  
wasabe sauce so strong it needs to be delivered in a radioactive  
materials transport."

"Eww… I hate spicy food…" Achika mooted.

Kiyone moved away from the living room, whose doorbell was  
ringing with a little more insistence. Meanwhile, Achika walked over  
to the window to see if she could catch a look at the exchange.  
Peering out, she didn't see any vehicle parked outside. The porch was  
obscured by the window frame, so she couldn't see who was waiting  
there. She did however, think she could see a flash of blue just out  
of the corner of her eye. Looking closer at it, she discovered it was  
a mass of azure hair, tied into a large ponytail-like body like her  
own hair, only this ponytail was much larger. Only one person she  
knew wore her blue hair in that style.

"Oh, dear God," Achika gasped. "KIYONE!"

The doorbell rang with growing impatience as Kiyone approached.  
"All right, all right, all right!" she replied. "I'm coming! Jeez…"

Finally, Kiyone reached the door, and opened it. "Hi! How are  
you—" Kiyone reflexively began, thinking it was the delivery boy.

As a pair of hands engaged her in a vice-like grip, it occurred  
to her that it most certainly was not.

"ACHIKA!" the blue-haired woman that now had Kiyone in a  
bear hug screeched. "WHY DIDN'T YOU SPEAK TO ME THIS MORNING!" She  
had obviously spent most of the morning crying her eyes out, and  
still was.

"Wha…" Kiyone managed to gasp out, as the constriction on her  
upper body prevented her drawing anything but a bare minimum of air  
in.

"I had breakfast prepared for you but you left so early that  
you never ate it…" the azure-tressed one sobbed.

Feeling a reduction of the force holding her, Kiyone replied.  
"Uh, ma'am, I don't know who you are, but you got me confused with  
someone else…"

The woman had pulled back a little and, through teary eyes, was  
looking at her. Her eyes narrowed, and finally… "WAAAAHHH! WHAT YOU  
DONE TO YOURSELF, LITTLE ACHIKA!" she exploded into a fresh  
fountain of tears.

Kiyone would have facefaulted, had the other woman not grabbed  
her by the shoulders and proceeded to shake her around like a  
ragdoll. Fortunately Kiyone still had the presence of mind to hold  
her neck steady so she wouldn't get whiplash.

"YOU'VE DYED YOUR HAIR GREEN!" the blue-haired one  
screeched. "YOU LOOK TERRIBLE! THAT'S WHY YOU DIDN'T TALK TO ME  
THIS MORNING, BECAUSE YOU KNOW I'D CHEW YOU OUT ABOUT IT…! And… and  
what have you done to your eyes…? They've turned blue…"

"Oh, fer God's sake, LADY, I AM NOT ACHIKA! JE NE SUIS PAS  
ACHIKA! ICH BIN NICHT ACHIKA! WHAT OTHER LANGUAGES DO YOU WANT THIS  
IN!"

By this time, the others had come in to explore the commotion,  
and all were looking at an extremely embarrassed Achika to solve  
this.

"Mom, will you please leave my friend alone!" the raven-haired  
girl exclaimed, storming through the partition between the hallway  
and the living room.

Achika's mother was stunned; so stunned that she didn't notice  
Kiyone make a quick egress and retreat to the relative safety of the  
group.

Eventually, however, she regained her composure, and a teary  
smile appeared on her face. "Ahh, there you are, my little Achika…!"

The woman's look turned hopeful, and Achika knew why. "Oh, no,  
mom, please, not here…" she pleaded, almost going as far as to drop  
to her knees and beg. When her mother adopted That Look, the one with  
the twitchy eyebrow and the low growl, she knew it was futile. She  
sighed in resignation, and briefly made a mental note to severely  
harm her mother later. "Oh-kay… Guys, I'm about to do something that  
you'd be well within your rights to tease me about. For your own  
safety, don't."

"Why?" Kiyone inquired.

"Trust me, Kiyone, you DON'T want to know."

"Uh… okay." The others made similar murmurs of agreement.

That said, Achika took a very deep breath, and then adopted a  
look virtually identical to her mother's previous expression.  
"MOMMY!" she cried, mock sobbing.

Instantly, the blue-haired woman's own expression changed,  
mirroring her daughter's own. "My little Achika…!" she cried.

Choking down further embarrassment, Achika took another step  
forward. "Oh, Mommy…"

"Achika! Come to me!"

With that, and with no small amount of reluctance, Achika  
stumbled into her mother's arms. The blue-haired woman sobbed loudly,  
while Achika merely sighed in embarrassment.

Throughout the entire exchange, a grin of mirth had appeared on  
Kiyone's face. Out of respect for Achika's tattered dignity, she  
tried hard to stifle a laugh, but eventually failed. "BWAHAHAHAHAHA!  
She's… calling her… 'Mommy'! HAHAHA—"

The next thing Kiyone knew, the scary blue-haired woman was in  
her face again. She panicked, and attempted to find an escape route.  
By the time she'd calculated one, the woman had jammed both her  
thumbs in her mouth, and was tugging at the corners in an attempt to  
rip her face off.

"Nobody mocks my little Achika," the woman growled, staring at  
her with a look of unbridled rage. "AM I MAKING MYSELF ABUNDANTLY  
CLEAR?"

"Uh, yeah, I hink," Kiyone replied, her speech distorted by the  
fact that her lips were immobile. "Chlese le' he go…?"

Achika sighed. "I warned you." Producing a large card, she  
hastily scrawled something on it, and then displayed it to Kiyone.  
"Read this, quick!"

"Uh… 'I'm a signpost, hug me'?" Kiyone obliged, puzzled.  
"Uh-oh, wait a minute, wrong context." Achika flipped the card  
over and read it.

Meanwhile, her mother released Kiyone and stared at her  
quizzically. Then the soppy look returned, and she grabbed the teal-  
haired woman in another bear hug. "Oh, what a cute signpost…"

"Well, at least I achieved the net objective," Achika said to  
herself, as Misao pulled up beside her.

"So, this is your mother?" she asked, quietly.

Achika sighed. "Yep. She's my mother, Misaki."

Misao looked on with an emotionless expression. "I wish my mom  
was like that."

Just as emotionless, Achika replied, "Wanna trade?"

By that time, the one named Misaki had lost interest in Kiyone,  
and was turning her attention back to Achika. Or rather, her little  
friend. "Ohh… You're sooo CUTE! I jus' wanna huggle the stuffing out  
of you…!" she chirped, lifting the hapless Misao off the ground and  
hugging her. "You remind me so much of my little Achika when she was  
your age…!"

"Mom, this is Misao Amano," Achika said, part in relief that  
she wasn't on the receiving end of that. "I've already introduced you  
to Misao…"

Almost immediately, Misaki stopped hugging Misao and dropped  
her like she was a live grenade. She stared at the little girl with a  
strange look, which quickly became hostile, and was concluded by her  
turning away and not acknowledging her existence.

Misao was too disoriented to be puzzled about this, but Achika  
most definitely was not. Her attempt to raise her mother on this was,  
however, timely interrupted by the screeching of a bird of prey.  
Seconds later, Rumiya shot into the room at full speed, followed by a  
cheerfully meowing Ryo-ohki, who was obviously chasing him. Rumiya  
circled around for a while and made a landing on Achika's shoulder,  
where he peered down at the hitherto ground-bound feline, and  
imperceptibly made an akambe. Ryo-ohki looked at him with a  
displeased expression, and hopped about, to climb up Sasami and sit  
on her shoulder. From here, he gave a rather exultant meow.

Misaki recognised that meow instantly, and turned to face the  
cabbit, who promptly sweatdropped. Then she looked at Sasami, who  
also eggdropped. "Is he yours?" she said, flatly.

"Yes, this is Ryo-ohki," Sasami replied, trying to be  
diplomatic but inwardly shaking.

"HOW COULD YOU LET SUCH A KAWAII CREATURE ROAM THE STREETS BY  
HIMSELF WHEN HE COULD HAVE BEEN RUN OVER, SOLD FOR MEDICAL  
EXPERIMENTATION, OR WORSE!" Misaki cried at the top of her  
lungs, making all within earshot facefault. It even made Ryo-ohki  
fall off his perch. "You don't deserve him…"

Sasami was about to launch a counter-attack, but realised that  
by doing so, she would incriminate herself to other stuff she didn't  
want the others to know about. But fortunately, the cavalry was  
arriving in the form of Chihiro.

"Hey, guys, what's the matter?" she whined plaintively. "Come  
back inside! I'm only three hundred songs through my karaoke medley!"

The well-built form of Misaki appeared before her, with a face  
like thunder. "You, ma'am, make me sick! People like you shouldn't be  
allowed to keep cute animals! Why, if I had my way, I'd report… you  
to… the authorities…" She trailed off when she saw something over  
Chihiro's shoulder. Then her entire demeanour changed to that of a  
kid in a candy store. "Hey… WOW! Look at all this sweet karaoke  
stuff!" She trotted into the living room, leaving everyone else  
hugely puzzled.

Misaki began leafing through the quite extensive collection of  
karaoke laser discs, growing ever more excited. "This stuff is sooo  
cool! I wish I had all these!"

Achika held her face in her hands, and wept with embarrassment.  
"Mom, why do you have to do this to me!"

She finally broke down in Tokimi's arms. She held Achika, doing  
all she could to comfort her friend. "There, there, Achika… It's  
okay…"

"How is it okay, Tokimi?" Achika replied, her voice muffled by  
her own hands and Tokimi's shoulder.

"She'll snap out of it. And if not, we'll just go into Tokyo  
and have you divorce her."

To that, Achika sobbed even louder.

Misaki finally noticed the centrepiece of Chihiro's extensive  
setup, and her jaw dropped so much it was almost tunnelling through  
to the North Atlantic. "Oh… my… GOD! Is this the Pathfinder KX3962  
fully-integrated karaoke hi-fi system with the Super Quantum Hyper-  
Mega-Giga-Tera Digital Signal Processing Environmental Audio  
reverb!" she screamed, the technobabble coming out so fast it would  
leave even Geordi LaForge tongue-tied.

"Indeed it is," Chihiro replied, fondling the turntable deck of  
her pride and joy. "With settings from closet to small galaxy!"

"Aw… Mine only goes up to Taj Mahal…!" Misaki said, a little  
upset.

"The 3952? They're good machines. But I thought the extra  
texture settings were worth the extra 100,000 yen!"

"HOW MUCH!" Tenchi and Sasami cried. "YOU SAID THAT ONLY COST  
YOU 140,000!"

"Okay, so I misplaced the decimal point! I had to have it!"

"Guys, we're completely bankrupt," Tenchi sighed. "You'll  
either have to work for free for a month or two, or we close up  
forever."

Kiyone, after milling it over, reluctantly nodded. Chihiro was  
feeding her anyway. Mihoshi was completely oblivious to this. Achika  
was too upset to even bother.

"We don't need to eat! We've got the best karaoke machine ever  
built!" Chihiro cheered. "Well, at least until the new model comes  
out next year…"

"No, mom. No," Tenchi put his foot down. "You either live with  
this one until the day you die, or sell it now."

"If you do, you've got one person interested," Tokimi chimed  
in, gesturing towards Misaki. "I haven't seen Mrs. K. this hyped up  
since she got the last Hello Kitty catalogue."

Misaki faced Chihiro with a pleading look. "Can I play, please,  
nice lady?"

Over Misaki's shoulder, Achika waved her arms frantically,  
mouthing, "NO! NO!"

"Okay," Chihiro replied, ignoring Achika's plea. The raven-  
tressed girl howled in despair.

It took less than three seconds to fire the karaoke player up  
again, and a few more for it to find the track and load the lyrics  
onto the monitor mounted behind the sofa. The frighteningly familiar  
distortion guitar intro to the song began, and then, following the  
bouncing ball, the two women began to sing a duet:

"Honey it hurts what you've done to me/I'd even call it a  
tragedy…/Now that you've told me the name of your new love…"

"Oh, terrific," Tenchi sighed. "Just the song you want to sing  
when you're entertaining guests."

"How I wish that you didn't say what you said…" the two women  
went on with increasing gusto, "Wish it was some other girl  
instead…/I don't know why you need a guy!"

At that point, the normally stoic Tokimi promptly crashed,  
leaving the ever more despondent Achika without a shoulder to cry on.  
At this point, Sasami took over, guiding her extremely distressed  
friend onto the sofa.

Chihiro and Misaki, however, had gotten into full swing.  
"Younger, stronger, a friend no longer/This bad boy you adore, need  
much more…/Leave me forever and run to your Hiroshi…"

At this point, the two women broke off and, using that  
indecipherable silent language that only karaoke enthusiasts know,  
paired the song into two equal parts. They were too busy watching the  
monitor to realise their audience was no longer receptive.

And so, they approached the chorus after the first stanza, with  
Achika praying for deliverance. She sobbed into Sasami's shoulder,  
with the blue-haired girl trying her best to console the now utterly  
distraught teenager.

"She does this to me every time!" Achika cried. "You know how  
many friends she's cost me when she does this?"

"Uh… no," Sasami replied in a conciliatory tone.

"Too many, Sasami! As soon as they see her, they don't return  
my calls!" Achika pulled out of Sasami's shoulder, and, her face  
filled with anguish, she looked up. "Dear Kami-sama, PLEASE help me  
out here! Do something! Anything! Break the karaoke machine, cause a  
localised brown-out, ANYTHING, just shut her up!"

Achika's prayers were answered.

Almost immediately, the karaoke machine's CD+G drive lost its  
footing and scanned through its disc. It locked onto something, but  
it was not 'Your Hiroshi'. It was an unrecognisable J-Pop song of  
some description.

Needless to say, Chihiro and Misaki were caught off guard.  
"Wha'!" Chihiro exclaimed. "What happened to my song!"

Misaki was close to bawling like a baby. "Waa! I want the song  
back!"

Achika facefaulted. Her prayer had not achieved the desired  
effect; if anything, it had made the situation worse.

Chihiro picked up the remote control and began frantically  
fiddling with it. "Come on, dammit, where are you!" she growled,  
pressing the seek buttons as the CD+G drive did the exact opposite of  
what it was being ordered to. Finally, the machine gave up the ghost  
and, with an electrical fizzle, fell silent. A wisp of smoke emerging  
from the aft ventilation grille signalled the KX3962's death knell.

In disbelief, Chihiro poked at the remote some more, expecting  
to hear the beep that signalled compliance with her order. Nothing  
happened.

"Uh, mom, I think it's broken," Tenchi observed.

No sooner had he said that, than the remote clattered to the  
floor. Chihiro began to tremor. The tremor became a violent twitch.  
The twitch was accompanied by a low growl. Everyone, except for  
Misao, Tokimi, Achika and Misaki knew what was coming next, and they  
were either dragged away or had the good sense to run.

"NNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Chihiro screamed at  
the top of her voice. "MY KARAOKE MACHINE IS BROKEN!" Two seconds  
later, she suffered a nervous breakdown and ran around the room like  
a cat on a mad half-hour, smashing anything that was breakable.

From the cover of the back of the sofa, Achika was terrified,  
and Misaki looked no better. "Would someone care to explain to me  
what just happened?" Achika asked.

"Mom goes nuts if she can't have her karaoke," Sasami replied.  
"It all depends on how bad the situation is. She just cries for a day  
if one of her discs is scratched."

"Where does this fit on that scale?"

"I'd say worst-case scenario," Kiyone piped up as she shielded  
Misao. She flinched as an inbound crystal glass fruit bowl exploded  
just a few inches away from her.

"But can't you fix the karaoke, little Achika?" Misaki  
inquired.

Two seconds later, the rain of destruction ceased. Chihiro  
poked her head over the sofa. "Whatdidyousay?" she blurted out.

Misaki was the first to rise. "My little Achika is great with  
electronics and stuff. She can fix the karaoke."

Achika bolted up. "What!" she exclaimed in disbelief. "Mom,  
you cannot be serious! Yes, I built my own computer, but this is a  
karaoke machine! It's proprietary hardware!"

Misaki patted her daughter's back, and said through her teeth,  
with a rather suggestive tone, "I said, 'My little Achika's great  
with electronics and stuff, she can fix the karaoke.'" She also  
flashed Achika a look that was rather insistent.

Chihiro looked on Achika like she was the messiah. "Can you?  
CanyoucanyoucanyouCANYOU!"

Achika sighed; there was no point in arguing. "Okay… Mom, why  
don't you and Mrs Kawai check out the karaoke bar down the street,  
while I work here?"

"That's a great idea, little Achika!" Misaki bubbled.

"Karaoke?" Chihiro gasped. "We going to karaoke?"

"Yes, Mrs Kawai, we're going to karaoke…" Misaki said  
placatingly, as she led Chihiro out of the house.

As soon as the door closed, Achika faced the sky. "Thank you,  
God…!"

Tenchi pulled up beside her. "I'm really, really sorry about  
this, Achika," he said. "You must think us really weird."

"I've seen worse," Achika replied. "I apologise for my mother –  
she's an idiot."

"We've seen worse," Sasami retorted.

"I'm sorry we can't do anything to compensate you for your  
trouble," Tenchi added. "Tell you what, I'll engineer it so a CD of  
your choice… 'disappears'."

"Thanks," Achika said. "Got anything by the Manic Street  
Preachers?"

"We've got everything by the Manic Street Preachers."

"Get me 'This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours' and you have a deal."

"Done."

"AND…" Achika raised her voice, "you help."

"Oh-kay… What do you need?"

"Screwdrivers, soldering iron, pliers, and some tin foil."

"The tools are in the closet," Kiyone chimed in. "I'll go get  
them." She stepped over to the closet and opened the door. Inside,  
among the tools and other items, were Mihoshi and Tokimi. Tokimi was  
shaking like a leaf and shielding Mihoshi, who was still snacking.

"C-Can we come out?" Tokimi blubbered.

Achika slid the centre unit of the deceased karaoke out of its  
place on the shelf, extracting it far enough so she could go around  
its back panel and unplug the connections to the mains, the 5.1  
speaker system, and the video monitor. With it disconnected, she  
hefted the rather weighty centre unit up into her arms and carried it  
over to an open space on the floor. She set it down, and sat before  
it.

"Medium Philips head, please, nurse," she mused.

"Yes, Doctor," Tenchi smiled, handing Achika one of the  
screwdrivers. "Where did you learn to do all this stuff, anyway?"

"I kind of picked it up as I was growing up," Achika replied.  
"When I was four, I was the only one in the house who could program  
the VCR."

"Ah, so you have 'The Knack', huh?"

"I guess. You should see my computer at home, that's my pride  
and joy. I guess it's where my mom got the crazy idea I can fix this  
thing."

"You mean you can't?" Sasami gasped.

"Sure I can. I think it's just a problem with the I/O buffers.  
We just change the fuse on it, and that's it."

"How did you know it was a problem with the I/O-doohicky?"

Achika looked at Sasami with a slightly unnerved expression. "I  
have absolutely no idea…"

The last cabinet screw was freed with the minimum of effort.  
"Tokimi, can you help me with the shell?" Achika called on her  
friend, who was sat on the sofa with Misao and Mihoshi. She got up,  
and took a side of the deceptively heavy black painted metal casing  
that surrounded the machine's back and sides. With a little jiggling,  
she and Achika finally removed the casing and set it aside, exposing  
the karaoke machine's innards – however sloppily assembled they were.

"Jeez!" Tenchi exclaimed in disbelief. "Who put this thing  
together, a two year old?"

"Close," Achika replied. "Try a group of forty Taiwanese high  
school girls working in conditions only marginally better than  
slavery."

"Um, Achika, the case says it was made in Indonesia," Tokimi  
chimed in, as she read the manufacturing sticker on the back of the  
casing.

"All right, a group of forty Indonesian high school girls  
working in conditions only marginally better than slavery. Tokimi,  
what have I told you about nitpicking?"

"Okay, so where is this I/O buffer?" Tenchi asked.  
"Somewhere on the mainboard, which is hiding under this CD+G  
drive. Tenchi, pass me the small Philips head."

As Achika unplugged the drive's connections, Tenchi handed over  
the screwdriver, which the raven-haired girl used to remove the small  
screws that held the drive in place. Achika slid the loosened drive  
out through the front panel, revealing the mainboard of the machine  
below. And right in the corner of that motherboard…

"Aha! Exactly what I thought," Achika exclaimed. "The fuse on  
the I/O buffer has blown. It's a simple problem, easily fixed. I just  
need a fresh 500 milliamp fuse."

Tenchi clicked his fingers. "Aw, damn, we're fresh out! I used  
the last one yesterday," he said sarcastically.

"A simple 'Sorry, Achika, we don't have one' would have  
sufficed. There isn't a hardware store around here, is there?"

"Now you mention it, there is," Kiyone said. "There's one in  
the mall."

"That's great!" Achika moved to stand. "I'll just go and get  
the fuse. Be right back!"

"No, you wait here, I'll get the fuse."

"Are you sure? If it's any trouble…"

"Achika, you're already doing two thankless jobs for us,"  
Kiyone replied. "Let me field this one, okay? Besides, who are we  
going to blame when Mrs Kawai comes back and sees her ludicrously  
expensive karaoke machine in pieces on the floor?"

"Gee, thanks… Okay, remember, it's a 500 milliamp fuse for  
electronic I/O buffers, preferably suited for boards with a good…  
ooh, 75 Ohms resistance."

"I see…" Kiyone looked as though that had flown straight over  
her head. "You couldn't write that down for me, could you?"

"You're absolutely sure you don't want me to go?"

Meanwhile, elsewhere in town, Washu sat among the organised  
chaos of her new apartment. Most of her stuff – that which survived  
the destruction of her previous home, anyway – still wasn't unpacked.  
She just hadn't gotten around to it yet, and she honestly didn't  
foresee any time in the near future when she would.

What was unpacked, however, was her vast computer system, upon  
which she was once again writing class reports. Washu would be the  
first to admit that Achika's late introduction to the class had  
thrown her somewhat, and she was still catching up. Still, nothing  
she couldn't handle, she often told herself.

She was a good two-thirds of the way through her batch, and, as  
she so often did, she was multitasking. She had an open net  
connection, firewalls, email client and web browser running in back.  
And it was one of these that alerted her to something incoming.

"Hmm?" Washu murmured quizzically, as the firewall program  
popped up. She scanned the dialogue box. "Sym56644.exe has requested  
an internet connection? What in the hell is that?"

To that end, she set about finding the program in question,  
unaware that, behind her, a shadowy figure was watching her through  
the only window in the room. He stood outside the ground-floor  
apartment, watched a while… then walked on to Washu's lounge window.  
Here, using a glass cutter, he cut a hole large enough to fit his  
hand through, then promptly did so to reach the window locks. Having  
unlocked the window, he quietly pulled it open.

In the next room, Washu's search was proving fruitful. Her  
computer had located the mysterious, 512KB program. Washu had  
immediately run a virus scan on it, only to see it come up as clean.  
Puzzled as to what the program was, or where the hell she got it  
from, she did what any well-meaning genius would – dismantled it.

She ran it through a program that she recently came up with. It  
took a source program, absorbed its machine code, disassembled it,  
and spat the results out in an understandable high-level language.  
Having done that, Washu quickly perused the results.

"What the…? This looks like a StandardSoft web installer!" she  
declared. "But what for? I don't run StandardSoft stuff… Where's the  
address?"

Washu scanned the program once more, looking for anything that  
might resemble an Internet address. She found one, and punched it  
into a file downloader. Having downloaded that one, she ran it  
through her disassembler.

And what she saw drained the colour from her face. "Oh, dear  
god, no!" Panicked, she tried to recollect her thoughts. "The net!  
I've got to disconnect the computer from the net!"

She scrambled out of her chair and almost flew across the room  
to get to the wall socket to which her computer was connected. She  
was about to physically rip the UTP line out of its mooring, when a  
hand grabbed her wrist and held it forcefully.

"I know that you are trying to disconnect us," an emotionless  
voice said, "and we're afraid that's something we cannot allow to  
happen."

Washu turned sharply to face the source of the voice, and saw  
what appeared to be an average, middle-aged salaryman, slightly  
built, nothing threatening or too unusual…until you saw his  
emotionless face, and his billiard ball-like eyes. This man had her  
in a grip stronger than his puny body would have one believe he could  
produce; she was unable to move.

"We know you are immune to the effects of the standardisation  
process," the man droned on, sounding disturbingly like HAL, "so I'm  
afraid it is necessary that you be incapacitated that you do not  
impede our plan."

He brought out a handkerchief, and clamped it to Washu's mouth  
and nose. Unable to fight the instinct of shock, Washu breathed in  
sharply, and instantly got a lungful of chloroform. She could feel  
her consciousness begin to slip away as the anaesthetic did its job,  
and within a few more moments, she was asleep. The man then slung the  
diminutive scientist over his shoulder and walked towards the  
apartment's front door, opened it, then left.

He was unaware that his every move was watched by a small red  
crab, which wordlessly scuttled into Washu's computer room.

Kiyone finally found Tom's Hardware Store, purveyor of all  
things DIY and household electrical. The shop, while specialised,  
wasn't THAT specialised. Outside of consumer unit fuses, plugs and  
sockets, there wasn't much else. She strongly doubted that she'd find  
Achika's 500-milliwhatchacallit thingamabob here.

And, after a brief perusal of the shop, her presumption was  
confirmed.

It was getting late. She really wanted to get back home. She'd  
just tell Achika that she couldn't get one.

But then she considered the results. Chihiro would come home,  
Achika would tell Chihiro she couldn't fix the karaoke machine,  
Chihiro would kill Achika, Misaki would kill Chihiro, Misty would get  
pregnant, fish would ride bicycles, and fresh hell would rain down  
upon the world.

'Well, that decision was a no-brainer.' And on that thought,  
Kiyone went on to comb Okayama for another hardware store.

Washu's crab picked up where she had left off. Having quite  
literally cut the net connection – it had cut the UTP line at the  
socket with its pincer – it was now attempting to get itself up to  
speed with what Washu was looking at. And with its intelligence, it  
didn't take too long.

Its experience with Washu's computer's operating system was  
limited, but just enough to guide itself around her system to  
research just what was going on. The results dismayed it. "Oh no… all  
that power in the hands of one human is bad enough, but a mad one…  
that's worse! I've got to stop him somehow!"

He then began to look for something else on the computer. "Just  
how do you find a magical girl when you need one…?"

Kiyone finally found another, more promising hardware store the  
other side of the city – another, but completely different, Tom's  
Hardware Store.

"Why are hardware stores always run by guys named Tom?" She  
mused to herself as she entered the store.

Inside, it looked and felt just like any other hardware store  
one might encounter anywhere, right down to the poor lighting and the  
smell of wood stain. Kiyone scouted around the rows of screws, power  
tools, and paints to find the electrical equipment, and when she  
found it, made a beeline for that corner of the store.

She attempted to find what she was looking for herself, but was  
unable to locate her needle in the haystack of fuses. She noticed, in  
the corner of her eye, a man stood at the counter, huddled over  
something. Surely he'd know where this damn fuse is.

"Uh, excuse me, sir," Kiyone asked, "I'm looking for a…" She  
once again consulted Achika's crib sheet. "…A 500-milliamp buffer  
fuse."

The man slowly, ponderously rose, and faced Kiyone, with an  
emotionless face and blank eyes. "Certainly, ma'am," he responded  
flatly. "If you could just identify the part on the computer…"

He stepped aside from the computer screen, allowing Kiyone to  
move closer to the counter and get herself a good vista of the  
screen. She browsed it for a second, trying to find the fuse that  
Achika had shown her… but the screen was blank. "Hey, what's the big  
idea? Where's your catalogue?"

And then the man hit 'Enter', and Kiyone's world disappeared  
into a white light.

"Sasami, sit down, you'll wear a hole in the carpet," Misao  
told Sasami.

Sasami paid her no heed, and continued to pace the living room,  
as she had done for the last two hours.

"Kiyone has to come back with that fuse!" she murmured, coming  
ever closer to bursting into tears. "If she doesn't, there's no  
telling what she'll do…"

"You said the exact same thing half an hour ago," Tokimi  
replied. "Then you told us what she might do, so you just defeated  
the obj-OW!"

Tokimi stopped in response to a pain in her left side. Sitting  
to her left, and recovering from jabbing her elbow, was Achika, who  
was flashing her a look that advised her to discontinue this thread  
of discussion. She promptly complied.

Achika rose and approached Sasami, putting her hands on the  
girl's shoulders and stopping her pacing. "I'll be the first to admit  
that Kiyone's taking her time with this fuse, but there's probably a  
good reason. Maybe she can't find it, or something."

Sasami sighed in resignation. "Yeah, maybe you're right."

Three seconds later, she resumed the pacing.

It was shortly thereafter that the front door opened. At that,  
the gathered group clambered over each other to see Kiyone enter.

"Kiyone, where have you been?" Sasami admonished. "We were  
worried about you!"

"Yeah, Kiyone," Achika added. "Where did you go for that thing?  
Taiwan?"

"Indonesia," Tokimi politely corrected.

"Whatever." Achika approached Kiyone and took the fuse off her.  
"I'm sorry, everyone," Kiyone said, flatter than usual. "I had  
to go to the other side of town to find it."

"I can tell," Tenchi replied. "You look beat. Come in and sit  
down before you collapse."

As Kiyone entered the living room, Achika was once again sat at  
the guts of the defunct karaoke machine. Soon after Kiyone sat,  
Achika took the new fuse from its packaging, visually checked it, and  
inserted it into its housing.

And as she did, both she and Kiyone flinched. While Kiyone  
responded no further, Achika, having felt some discomfort she  
couldn't quite put a name to, dismissed it with the assumption that  
she trapped her finger between the fuse and its mooring clip, and  
instinctively sucked it a little. A few minutes later, she had  
reassembled the machine, and was in the process of reconnecting the  
cables around the back.

While she was doing that, Mihoshi noticed that the power lead  
extension for the machine was unplugged from the wall. She deduced  
Achika would need it plugged in, and so reinserted the plug.

Unbeknown to her, she had picked the worst possible time;  
Achika happened to be holding onto the other end of that lead. Under  
normal circumstances, this would not be a problem, but in this case,  
as soon as the plug was inserted, the standard Japanese household  
power supply – plus a hell of a lot more for good measure - got  
channelled through one very unlucky 17-year-old. For a good few  
seconds, Achika got flash-fried by the power surge, before being  
thrown across the room and landing in a smouldering heap.

"What the hell was that!" Tenchi exclaimed as he scrambled to  
his feet and ran to Achika. Misao, Sasami and Tokimi joined him, but  
Kiyone did not respond.

"Achika? You okay?" Tokimi asked, prodding her friend, and  
getting a residual aftershock in the process.

"Itai…" Achika whimpered in reply.

"I'll bet," Tokimi retorted.

Tenchi had gone over to the back of the karaoke machine, and  
was looking for what could have electrocuted Achika. Save for the  
unplugged power lead, he found nothing. He plugged the cord into its  
socket at the back of the KX3962, and heard the karaoke machine's  
reassuring power-up beep.

"Wow, Achika, you did it!" Tenchi said with joy. "Thanks a  
lot!"

Achika managed to stick a thumb-up out of her crumpled heap.  
"No problem…"

And at that moment, the door opened again, and two VERY drunk  
women spilled in, singing loudly and out of tune. "…They call the  
rising sun… And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy—"

"Hey, we're girlsh!" one of them said.

"Nitpicker!" the other one replied.

"…Many a poor girl…" they attempted to resume the song they  
were slaughtering. "…And god, I know I'm one…hic!"

On their way into the house, Misaki and Chihiro ran into a  
brick wall. Then, after reversing away from the walls of the hallway,  
they ran into Tenchi and Sasami. The stand of the Kawai family was  
quickly supplemented by Achika.

"And where have you two been?" Tenchi and Achika said in near  
unison.

Chihiro began. "We were jusht shinging at thish carry—"

"Karaoke," Misaki, who wasn't much better, offered a  
correction.

"Carry-okie bar, and we, uh…"

"We, uh…"

"We jusht got very…"

"Very…"

"Very…"

"Very…"

"We get the idea!" Achika stopped them before this ended up  
taking all night.

"Mom, did you try to drink Mrs Kekoi under the table?" Sasami  
asked.

It took Chihiro all of 30 seconds to process that one. "What're  
you shaying? I only had a few…"

"Yeah. A few breweries…" Sasami replied under her breath. "Mom,  
you should go to bed and sleep it off."

"YOU DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! YOU'RE NOT MY FATHER!"  
Chihiro barked on the verge of incoherency, taking Sasami's concern  
entirely the wrong way.

"Chihiro Kawai, you do not talk to your father like that!"  
Tenchi barked with a gruff voice. "Now you march yourself up those  
stairs and go to your room!"

"Yes, Daddy."

As Chihiro marched up the stairs, Misaki watched her. "Now  
there's a woman who can't hold her liquor," she said, perfectly  
lucid. "Maybe I should've stopped her at nine…"

She didn't notice the astonished looks she was receiving from  
everyone.

Biff looked at the screen, and grinned.

"It's working…" he purred with delight. "Dear god, it's  
working… The standardisation is spreading like wildfire…"

And indeed it was. His screen showed a political map of the  
world. Each nation was coloured according to the degree of  
standardisation – red for none, green for total. Far too many of the  
countries were going green.

"Billions of computers across the world… and billions of users  
slaved to them… my God, it's glorious. Soon, the whole world will be  
standardised… and I will lead it! BWAHAHAHA—"

His thunder was promptly stolen by a computer beeping in his  
ears. He quickly gathered himself, and vacated his seat once again.  
Returning to the heavily armoured wall, he placed his hand on it. The  
beeping in his ears resumed, chirping in a very cute way.

"Yes, yes, I understand…" he said. "You are growing, my child…"  
He received more cheerful beeping in reply. Biff smiled with an  
eclectic mix of sheer insanity, and paternal pride.

Then the beeping turned angry, and so too did Biff's demeanour  
change. "You found the energy spectrum I told you to look for!"

The beeping conveyed what could only be an affirmative.

"No, no, no, no, NO!" Biff screamed. "Those little bitches  
are not going to spoil my plans this time! Where are they!"

The beeping resumed.

"There's only one signal? Where?"

The beeping gave a reply.

"Okayama, eh? And you say this source is extremely powerful?"

Another affirmative.

"Hmm… we'll have to approach this one carefully. Send in the  
drones."

The beeping took on a wry, almost sly tone.

"We have one in their midst already? Outstanding! Activate it."

Washu's crab was once again at the computer. It had decided  
against consulting the phone book, and instead opted for the most  
reliable method of locating magical energy known – Washu's locator.

The antennae Washu had previously used were destroyed at the  
last apartment, so the crab had jerry-rigged something MacGyver-style  
using a coat hanger, a signal booster, duct tape, and a toothbrush.  
It had carried the device around the room a little until it got a  
good signal. Now, it just needed to pinpoint its location.

And it very quickly did.

"Okay," it said to itself, "I have their location, I have a  
solution to the 'standardisation'… I think that all checks out. I  
should get moving before the situation gets any worse…"

"YOU drank Mrs Kawai under the table?" Achika was stunned.

"Who else would?" Misaki replied. "Well, actually, she  
challenged me, and I accepted. She lost it after about ten, but she  
would insist on going for sixteen."

You look none the worse for wear," Tenchi added.

"Yeah, my mom's always had a very high tolerance for alcohol,"  
Achika explained.

"But you came in no better than she did!" Sasami asked.

"Heh… It just took a little longer for me to dismiss the  
effects… that, and I was acting."

Once again, Misaki was getting looks of astonishment from the  
assembled group.

"Come on! She was plastered! I had to act that way so she  
wouldn't get embarrassed!"

"Mom, she was out of her mind," Achika reasoned. "She could  
have paraded across town butt-naked and singing Bad Touch and she  
wouldn't have cared."

As this was going on, no one noticed what Kiyone was doing. At  
first, she sat quietly on the sofa, completely disaffected by  
everything that happened. Then, she slowly rose to her feet,  
approached the group… and began to strangle Misaki.

The assembled group was stunned by this completely unexpected  
event. It took them a few seconds to recover, and a few more to  
motion to try and break the two women up. Misaki was trying to get  
Kiyone off her, but even her considerable strength couldn't dislodge  
the hands compressing the vital conduits traversing her throat.

Kiyone simply removed one hand from Misaki's throat, moved the  
other around to compensate, and, with one swift motion, sent the  
group attempting to restrain her flying across the living room, along  
with any furniture they happened to crash into en route. Tenchi was  
unlucky enough to hit his head a little harder than the others.

Misaki could briefly see her cheeks out of the bottom of her  
eye, and could see them turning blue. This was only briefly, as very  
soon afterwards, her vision started to grey-out, and she began to  
slip into unconsciousness.

Just as her mind finally shut down, she could hear something  
crash through the window.

Indeed, an object flew through the window at great speed.  
Achika was just picking herself up from being hurled into one of the  
karaoke machine's woofers, so when she caught sight of the  
projectile, she put it down to a hallucination brought on by  
concussion. She shook her head, rubbed her eyes, and looked again.

So much for concussion.

Stood on top of the upturned sofa, amidst shards of glass, was  
a cutefied red crab, wearing desert combat fatigues, with camouflage  
paint around its face, a grenade belt strapped around its body,  
Washu's heart laptop on its back, and something that looked akin to a  
miniature M-16 in its pincers. And, although one would be hard-  
pressed to confirm this, Achika was sure that it had a kind of  
Schwarzenegger-esque expression.

"Knock-knock!" the crab announced, wryly, falling short of  
emulating the Austrian accent.

Kiyone dropped the unconscious Misaki, who fell to the floor.  
She now turned her attention to this strange, and seemingly  
ineffectual newcomer. A swift kick would send it flying.

The crab was prepared. It brought its weapon to bear on Kiyone,  
and fired two shots. Instead of bullets, the weapon fired bright  
green energy projectiles, which struck true on Kiyone's chest and  
stomach. After flinching in response to the impact of the  
projectiles, Kiyone resumed her zombie-like advance… until the bolts  
activated. She convulsed as she was engulfed by a green electrical  
storm, covering her from head to toe. She writhed in vain to escape  
it, but could not. It held her firmly.

As this went on, Achika felt a pain in her head. Rapidly, this  
pain grew exponentially, until it became excruciating, then surpassed  
any describable precedent. Achika's attempts to contain her agony  
were quickly defeated, and she cried out, collapsing to the floor and  
clutching the sides of her head. Sasami and Tokimi quickly came to  
their friend's aid, just as Kiyone, too, emitted a tortured howl.

Biff, too, was prostrate with pain. Pain as though someone had  
cut off all his limbs, poured salt and nitric acid into the wounds,  
put him into a blast furnace and sautéed him until tender. "Nnnnnn…  
nnnnoooo…. Why….?" he only just managed to push past the blockade of  
agony in his mind. "Sh… she's gonnnne!"

After the most agonising thirty seconds that Sasami had ever  
had to witness, her friends' cries of pain fell silent. The  
electrical anomaly that had engulfed Kiyone fell silent, allowing her  
to fall, unconscious, next to Misaki. Achika, meanwhile, was still on  
her knees, and clutching her head to dull the fading pain, breathing  
heavily, and still sobbing from the pain in between breaths. Tokimi  
cradled her friend as she pulled herself together.

"What was all that about?" Tokimi voiced a number of emotions  
with her query, and not the least of them was worry. She received no  
answer. There was no one there who could give her one.

Except, of course, for the crab, who had scurried onto Sasami's  
shoulder. Once here, he whispered into her ear. "Your friend will be  
fine in a moment or two, but we need to talk. Grab your friend, the  
bird, and the cabbit and follow me to your room." With that, it  
scuttled away, and up the stairs.

Sasami quickly formulated a plan, and executed it. "I'll take  
Achika up to my room, she needs to lie down." She took Achika's right  
hand, and covertly tapped her palm twice with her little finger.  
Achika gripped her hand in reply. This was a signal they had agreed  
upon when non-verbal communication was necessary.

"Can you walk, Achika?" Sasami asked.

Achika rose to her feet, a little unsteadily at first but  
quickly regained her balance. "Yeah… yeah, I think so," she replied,  
still sounding a little groggy. "Thanks, Tokimi. I'm okay now."

"Need any help?" Tokimi asked.

"No, thanks, we're okay. Just keep an eye on my mom and Kiyone  
till they wake up, okay?"

Tokimi didn't discount this reaction toward Kiyone, but it  
still surprised her. "I'd have thought you'd want blood after what  
she's just done."

"For doing something I've often considered doing? Not really.  
Besides, I'm sure there's a logical explanation to all this…" As she  
and Sasami turned to head for the stairs, Achika added under her  
breath, "At least, I hope there is."

On the way, Sasami faced Ryo-ohki, and then Rumiya, giving the  
bird a cold, begrudging address. She then cast her eyes toward the  
stairs, silently gesturing for them to follow. The cabbit and the  
bird did as requested, and took off after the two girls.

They entered Sasami's bedroom. Nothing much out of place in  
here, apart from the laptop and weapons chest of drawers, the open  
panty drawer… The assembled group went to investigate further, and  
found the crab ferreting around in there. Rather perturbed, Sasami  
reached in and fished the crab out for all to see.

"You little hentai!" Achika admonished.

"Sorry, sorry," the crab replied. "Could you put me down now?"  
Sasami put the crab back on the top deck of the drawers, but  
before it could dip its claws back in, she slammed it shut with a  
bang.

"So what is this about, anyway?" the blue-haired girl asked.  
"What's going on here?"

"I will explain. But first, can one of you operate this?" The  
crab slid the laptop forward. "Washu uses a rather archaic operating  
system on her computer, and, well, the lack of fingers does kind of  
make it difficult."

"Um… not me, I'm afraid," Sasami replied. "My computing  
experience stretches as far as making CDs… and playing FreeCell…"

"We're in the same boat, dude," Rumiya answered for himself and  
Ryo-ohki, holding up his wings as his compatriot held up his paws.  
"Pity we can't grab oars."

"I can do it," Achika replied. "But Washu using an old OS?  
That's like saying NASA's running the Wright brothers' plane."

Achika flipped the power switch on the side and waited for the  
computer to boot. As it did, and ran through the BIOS and threw up  
the splash screen, Achika was forced to agree with the crab. "Well  
I'll be… She uses OpenBEE. She might as well be using an abacus."

"OpenBEE?" Sasami asked.

"A very buggy operating system. She's got the new version, but  
with all this semi-functioning stuff on it… it is not a l33t box."

"Leet?" Rumiya inquired, perplexed.

"No, Ru, not leet. l33t," Achika corrected. (In actuality, they  
sounded identical.) "l33t is this thing you do when you, well,  
0\/\/\/z someone, you know? You get me?"

"Um, no," Ryo-ohki replied. "In truth, you're starting to scare  
us."

"Good…" Achika said, a rather evil look emerging on her face.  
"ph34r… PH34R M4 L33T N3KK1D SK1LLZ!"

At that point, the others were ready to run, when Achika  
cracked up. "C'mon! I'm kidding!"

Shortly after that, the computer finished loading its OS, and  
Achika began to use it. "Okay, what am I looking for?"

"Just look for something on symbiosis," the crab replied.

"Okay, where's the search system on this…?" Achika trailed off  
for a minute, looked thoughtful, then came back and quickly clicked  
on icon after icon after icon. Within seconds, she'd found a series  
of video files in a folder, and clicked on a file that would run them  
all in sequence.

The screen went blank, and the title "Scientific Research  
Centre of Japan" faded in. Below it was the subtitle "New User  
Interfaces for Electronics Systems – Project SYM56644 – Subconscious-  
Level Machine/Human Symbiosis – Project Leader Washu F. Kobayashi"

"Whoa, that was fast!" Sasami gasped in amazement.

"d00d, j00 0wnz," Ryo-ohki said, patting Achika on the back.  
"Did I get that right?"

"Close enough, but it made too much sense to be truly l33t,"  
Achika replied, as she sat back and watched the movie. "…And you  
didn't use enough keyboard symbols."

"How the hell could she tell…?" Ryo-ohki asked himself under  
his breath.

The title screen faded, to reveal a computer engineering  
laboratory, complete with lots of eerie machine with flashing lights,  
and subordinates milling around. Front and centre, and facing the  
camera, was Washu.

"We're recording these files in lieu of written notes," Washu  
began, as her mad look flashed across her face "because written notes  
suck!" She returned to normal. "Anyway, on with the show:

"We were commissioned to begin research into new methods of  
controlling electronic devices, with particular emphasis on making  
the new interface universal, easily accessible, intuitive, and quick  
to respond. We tried various approaches to this, but most required  
the constant use of additional hardware, as well as additional  
training in the operation of the hardware. Most end-users could  
neither afford, nor spare the time to train for these.

"Our final solution was inspired, of all things, by a  
children's book."

At this, everyone facefaulted.

"After reading the novel 'The Dark Season', I got the idea of  
possibly being able to meld the operation of the computer into the  
subconscious mind of the user. By doing this, operating the computer  
would require no more mental overhead than, say, moving your arm to  
grab a cup." With that, the on-screen Washu reached forward and  
grabbed a mug of coffee with the motto "World's Greatest Scientific  
Genius" on the side, took a sip, replaced it, and went on.

"In effect, the machine and the user establish a 'symbiosis',  
wherein they communicate commands and responses between each other at  
the subconscious level, much like one receives the sense of touch.  
The process of setup is actually quite simple, and requires two  
things inherent to electronic equipment and all life forms – their  
inherent EM field. To set up this symbiosis, the machine must  
polarise its partner's EM field to match its own – in effect,  
formatting the user. A few electrical modifications are also made to  
the brain's lower regions, to insert processing regions for what  
could be considered a new limb."

The realisation began to dawn on all who watched as to what was  
happening… and to Achika especially.

"After the setup is complete, the new interface can be used  
immediately. The computer will listen to the user and pick up any  
request it, or the user, feels it can fulfil. It will then  
automatically execute that operation, where necessary surreptitiously  
querying the user for additional input, and return the results to the  
user, who will act upon it accordingly."

That clinched it for Achika. It explained in one fell swoop why  
she felt the location of the file she was watching, how it had  
responded so quickly and effortlessly. "Oh, my god… it must have  
happened to me. I must have gotten hold of this symbiosis program in  
some way."

"Cool! You really are computer friendly!" Rumiya chirped.  
Achika flashed him a look to inform him that she was most definitely  
not amused. Disturbed was more like it.

"However, our early tests worked more than we anticipated.  
Because all electronic equipment in Japan works on the same EM  
frequency, it comes to pass that a person formatted for symbiosis can  
connect with any sufficiently intelligent electronic device, and  
control it in a similar manner."

"Does that include…?" Sasami began.

Achika finished for her. "…A certain Pathfinder KX3962 fully-  
integrated karaoke hi-fi system with Super Quantum Hyper-Mega-Giga-  
Tera Digital Signal Processing Environmental Audio reverb? I would  
hazard an educated guess and say…" She then began to bawl. "Oh, crap,  
I killed your mom's karaoke machine!"

"But you fixed it… that's all that matters. Just don't mention  
this to my mom, or you'd better pick what colour envelopes you want  
the pieces of your carcass to be mailed home in."

The filmed Washu went on. "We hope that this new technology  
will improve computer literacy among the public, and be used further  
afield to enable all to use computers with sufficient ease,  
especially those with disabilities and paralysis."

"Ugh… my head…" Kiyone clutched at the sides of her head in an  
attempt to lessen a dull pain that seemed to run through her whole  
brain. She attempted to probe her memory for what had happened to  
her. Her last memory was of being in that hardware store, asking for  
the fuse. "Must've caught too much varnish fumes…" she surmised.  
"They really gotta fix that—"

Kiyone's attempts to raise to her feet were met with someone  
shouting "BACK OFF!", which hurt her head even more, and someone  
pushing her back forcefully. She still had her eyes closed, so she  
thought now would be a good time to open them.

What she saw didn't tally. She was now back home. The karaoke  
machine was reassembled. There was broken glass and upturned  
furniture strewn across the room. She saw Tenchi laid against the  
cabinet that supported the laser disc collection like a ragdoll, a  
rather fetching bruise on his left temple. She also saw Misaki,  
collapsed on the floor, her face recovering from cyanosis.

But the strangest part was Tokimi, sat on top of her, wearing a  
look somewhere between fear and distrust, and holding a rather large  
kitchen knife with the pointy end aimed at her. "Tokimi, what the--?"  
she began to ask.

"Shut up!" Tokimi replied, with a hint of desperation in her  
voice. "I don't know what you were trying to pull, but I'm not going  
to let you do it again!"

"What the hell do you mean!" Kiyone replied, thoroughly  
confused. "I have no idea what you're talking about! What did I do?"

Another groggy groan rang out, as Misaki started to regain  
consciousness. Tokimi sighed with relief. "At least she's okay… Can  
someone look after Mrs Kekoi for me? I have my hands full here."

The only two conscious people in the room were Misao and  
Mihoshi. Mihoshi was sat on the sofa with a look like that of a deer  
caught in headlights, issuing a terrified whimper. She was obviously  
not going to be much help, so that left Misao, who went to Misaki's  
side and attempted to help the woman to a sitting position.

"Oh, thanks…" Misaki said, groggily, as Misao did what she  
could to help. When Misaki finally got to a sitting position, she saw  
exactly who had helped her… and promptly snatched her body away from  
her, once again giving her that glare of hostility. Misao appeared to  
pay the glance no heed.

"What in god's name happened here?" Kiyone asked, rather  
distressed.

"What, you mean you don't know?" Tokimi retorted, her voice  
laden with sarcasm and disbelief. "I would've thought strangling Mrs  
K and then throwing us into the furniture would have left some  
lasting impression!"

"WHAT! When did I do this?"

Tokimi's normally infinite patience was beginning to run out.  
"Oh, for god's sake, Mutsumi Otohime, drop the amnesia shtick, it's  
wearing thin. Will somebody call the damn police already!"

"It's not shtick, Tokimi, I really don't have a clue what  
you're talking about! You're saying I did this!"

After sitting there for a few minutes, trying to process the  
events and avoid Misao like a leper, Misaki came out with a sudden,  
and completely irrelevant outburst: "WHERE'S MY LITTLE ACHIKA!"

"She's okay, Mrs K," Tokimi replied. "She's upstairs with  
Sasami. Doing god knows what…"

On that, Misaki scrambled to her feet and dashed up the stairs.  
"How the hell does she put up with her…?" Tokimi asked herself.  
"All right, up," she gestured to Kiyone with the knife, and got off  
her.

Kiyone got up and snatched the knife out of Tokimi's pensive  
grip. "For god's sake, woman, put that down!" she then threw the  
knife away and went after Misaki, leaving Tokimi and Misao. Shrugging  
to each other, they too followed, leaving the gibbering Mihoshi and  
Tenchi, who himself was beginning to regain consciousness, to their  
own devices.

The crab tapped a key on the laptop, stopping the playback. It  
then took a stance in front of the screen to take over the  
explanation. "Girls, this is the situation: someone has usurped the  
symbiosis program. They have changed it, warped it beyond its  
original premise. Now, instead of the user controlling the machine,  
the machine controls the user. Your friend downstairs was claimed by  
this, and that's what made her attack you."

"YAY!" Achika cheered. "A logical explanation! Woohoo!"

Ryo-ohki looked concerned. "But who would do something like  
this?"

"It'd better not be who I think it is…" Rumiya growled.

The crab went on. "Are any of you familiar with a man called  
Biff Standard?"

Sasami's face, along with that of Ryo-ohki and Rumiya, fell  
like Hindenburg. "Not him!" Sasami exclaimed. "It couldn't be him!  
He's in an asylum! But, in hindsight, this seems to fit his MO."

"Just a minute, hold everything," Achika interjected. "How the  
heck do you know Biff Standard?"

"We fought him a year or so ago. He tried to create some way  
misguided utopia by 'standardising' the world's computers and its  
users, and crashing the moon into the Earth so he could rebuild the  
world in his own image. Luckily we whupped his butt before he could  
finish his plan."

"Evidently you didn't hit him hard enough… or too hard, I don't  
know. So I'm to assume that Biff Standard has taken this program and  
adapted it to his own means."

"That is correct," the crab retorted. "He's trying to resurrect  
his standardisation plan by using this symbiosis program as a Trojan  
horse to slave all computers on the network to his central mainframe,  
and the users of those computers to their own machines. Net result:  
standardisation."

"Unless we stand in his way, right?"

"Right," the crab replied. "Well, more specifically, you.  
Because you, too, have been affected by the symbiosis program, but  
not to the extent of your friend. You remain in control of yourself  
and your actions. You will be the vehicle by which we will defeat the  
standardisation program."

"But how do we do that?"

"Well, there are two ways. One is by using weapons similar to  
the weapon with which I shot your friend, which undoes the  
'formatting' of the symbiosis program."

"Oh. Well, you'd better sedate everyone affected before you do.  
Most people would sooner thank you to kill them than put them through  
anything remotely resembling what I went through."

"That brings up something that I'm curious about," Sasami piped  
up. "Why did Achika feel the pain while Kiyone was being affected?"

"Because Kiyone and I must have been connected by some point,"  
Achika retorted. "Either an electronic device in the room, or a  
remote central communication point – maybe even the origin of this  
thing. And this symbiosis must work both ways… just like the user  
considers the computer an extra limb, the computer considers the user  
an extra input device, and losing that connection is like cutting off  
an arm or a leg – it hurts, Sasami. It really hurts."

"Exactly," the crab added. "And it's this communication that  
will be its downfall, and the crux of the second method. When a  
number of people become vampires, what is the quickest way to reverse  
that?"

"By killing the head vampire," Achika replied. Shortly  
thereafter, the meaning of that dawned on her. "A-ha! I get it! You  
want me to take out the central point!"

"Precisely. All you have to do is order it to cleanse the  
programming from it. That will carry on to all of the people affected  
by it – all 3 billion of them. It's the only way it can practically  
be done."

"Okay, that I can understand. Manually zapping three billion  
people is a little more than something a crab and two Magical Girls  
can do. But, this begs one question: where do we attack?"

The crab and Sasami furnished Achika with her answer in unison:  
"Akihabara."

Sasami went on to explain. "Biff's Japanese headquarters are  
located there. And if the authorities have any sense, he wouldn't be  
allowed to leave the country."

"Sasami, given the current climate, I think the words  
'authorities' and 'sense' would be ill-used within the same  
sentence," Achika interjected.

"True enough, Achika," the crab said. "But Sasami is right –  
Standard is running this show from Akihabara. His central system is  
located there… along with thousands of the standardised who will  
invariably do anything to stop you… like your friend downstairs."

"So we have to fight through hordes of heavily-armed zombies  
without getting killed, to reach an installation, reprogram it,  
destroy it, and get out of there before all hell breaks loose? Why  
does all of this sound disturbingly familiar?"

"We can offer you some protection," Rumiya said. "We should be  
able to program something similar to the deformatting weapon into  
your batons. We'll try and adapt the automatic defence system so  
it'll shield you from any reciprocal effects."

"If you can't do that, just be sure to have lots of  
painkillers," Achika smiled, but she was deadly serious.

"I'll work with the cabbit on that," the crab said. "Washu and  
I have been observing your methods. We could help each other out."

"Very well," Ryo-ohki replied. "We'd best get on it. We might  
need to use you as a testbed, Achika."

Achika didn't respond. She appeared to be straining to hear  
something.

"Uh… Achika…?" Sasami repeated to try and get her attention.

"Shh…" Achika warned. She then held up four fingers, tugged at  
her ear, and gestured to the door. This silent communiqué meant that  
there were four people attempting to listen in through the door,  
something that Ryo-ohki verified. Though with all the noise coming  
from the door, it wasn't that much of a feat to figure it out.

Misao, Misaki, Tokimi and Kiyone had indeed placed their ears  
flat against the closed door to Sasami's room, trying to find the  
best acoustic positions on it.

"What can you hear?" Tokimi asked.

"Just you at the moment," Kiyone whispered. "Pipe down a  
little, will ya?"

"Shh!" Misaki hissed. "There's someone coming to the door!"

"Yeah, I can hear the footsteps," Misao added.

On the other side, Achika was ponderously approaching the door  
with a silly straight-legged walk, with a sly grin on her face,  
humming a little ditty to herself. She stopped at the door for a  
second or two, and then, in one swift, fluid motion, produced an air  
horn, brought it up close to the door, and fired. The horn was loud  
enough in the small room, but probably deafening to whomever had  
their ears on the door. Sure enough, after the short blast, the sound  
of four people falling to the floor carried through into the room.

"Well, that took care of that little problem…" Achika told  
herself as she casually discarded the can. As she did so, she caught  
the somewhat bemused looks of Sasami, Ryo-ohki, Rumiya, and quite  
probably the crab – all of whom had grown large sweatdrops. "Why are  
you looking at me like that? C'mon, guys, we have work to do." She  
opened the door and stepped over the assortment of bodies at its  
foot.

The crab hopped off the chest of drawers and scuttled out after  
Achika. Ryo-ohki was not too slow in following. Sasami got up, in  
preparation to follow him, but before she could gain movement  
velocity, Rumiya had flown ahead and collided with the door, feet  
first. This had the effect of closing the door, and, almost exactly  
like the eponymous bird of Poe's poem, he had perched himself atop  
the doorframe.

"We need to talk," he said.

"Do we, now?" Sasami said disdainfully. "Well, I don't feel  
like talking right now, and especially not with you, so if you'll  
excuse me—"

Rumiya rolled his eyes. "Look, Sasami, I like you. Even though  
the feeling is definitely not mutual, I consider you a friend. But if  
you don't sit down and listen to me, I'll peck your saucer-like eyes  
out."

Sasami sat. "All right, talk."

"You don't like me much, do you?"

The young girl snorted. "Is it that obvious?" she said with  
copious sarcasm.

"Why?"

"Well, let me see… maybe it's the fact that you work for  
Ramia?"

Rumiya flinched at the mention of that name, but was quick to  
retort. "Worked, Sasami. Worked. I don't any more. I refuse to work  
for someone with the level of disdain for human life as… her…"

"Really? Well, you took your time coming to that conclusion.  
Why couldn't you have come to it sooner? It would have saved me a lot  
of trouble, and considerable property damage… or have you really come  
to that conclusion?"

Rumiya looked puzzled. "Excuse me?"

"You heard. I don't think you've changed sides at all. I think  
you're some kind of Trojan horse. I think you're just her to break us  
up so Ramia will have no resistance." Sasami got to her feet, and  
marched toward Rumiya, almost leaping down his throat were it not for  
his higher vantagepoint. "To put it into an image you can understand,  
I DO NOT TRUST YOU. Am I making myself clear?"

Rumiya was speechless. It took him a few seconds to resolve  
himself, but when he did… "How dare you."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard!" Rumiya spat Sasami's words back at her. "How dare  
you accuse me of being a Trojan horse? What, you think I disown my  
own sister and throw the girl I love to the lions on a daily basis!  
You want to know how long I've been trying to fight her? Longer than  
you've been carrying your baton! I have tried to neutralise psychotic  
scheme after psychotic scheme for years, but it's not exactly easy  
when your opponent outclasses you in magic and physical strength.  
I've seen Ramia enslave people, plot the destruction of planets, and  
even go as far as attempt genocide, and every time I even voiced  
dissent… you remember that blast she gave me when you and Misa teamed  
up against Standard the last time? I've taken much, much worse."

Now it was Sasami's turn to be speechless.

"And you know why I took it? Because if not for me, it would  
probably be Misa taking the beatings. I couldn't let her bear that  
kind of treatment! But Ramia did it to her anyway! Even with me right  
there, she still did it! I left because I was fighting a losing  
battle. I came aboard this banana boat because Ryo-ohki believes your  
leet hacker friend out there just might have what it takes to nail  
Ramia for good. THAT is my only agenda, Sasami. THAT is why I'm here  
– to train Achika, just like Ryo-ohki trains you. I'd be perfectly  
happy to go away and leave you to it, but I'm sorry. I can't. Am I  
making myself clear?"

Sasami could only nod an affirmative.

"Good. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get with Ryo-ohki and  
come up with some way of making sure you and Achika make it out of  
this zombie slugfest with a little more than your sentience intact."  
With that, Rumiya lifted off and headed for the door… not realising  
it was closed. Sasami opened it before the predictable consequences  
could ensue.

Thus, Sasami was left in her room. Left with a few home truths  
to digest. She had treated Rumiya terribly, she readily admitted  
that. She could no longer use the time-honoured excuse "He deserved  
it" – he didn't deserve that on top of everything his sister had put  
him through, plus leaving Misa. Rumiya was just doing a job, with the  
slim hope that perhaps together, they could defeat Ramia. If the bird  
deserved anything, it was a break.

But could she bring herself to trust him? After all, wasn't  
this the bird that accompanied Misa on all her reigns of terror? Was  
this not the brother of Ramia – though precisely how his parents had  
one girl and one bird defied even her basic knowledge of biology.  
Rumiya had said as much, he tried to stop her, even though said  
fighting did, on numerous occasions, look more like Gandhi-esque  
passive resistance and token nuggets of playing Misa's conscience. As  
far as Sasami saw it, he did nothing of worth to stop what was  
happening, which to her was just as bad as committing the act itself.  
But it was more the association with her foes that made trusting  
Rumiya so hard to digest, brought on by the fact that her foes had  
switched sides and switched back again on countless occasions.

She had her fingers burned so many times, she truly couldn't  
tell if Rumiya would watch their backs when it came to the crunch, or  
stab them in them.

Two hours later saw a group of five assembled in the street  
outside Sasami's house. By this time, it had grown dark, so all the  
houses had closed their curtains, affording the two girls, the  
talking bird, the talking crab, and the talking cabbit a little  
privacy.

"Okay, we've programmed a kind of firewall into Achika's  
baton," Rumiya explained. "What this will do is allow Achika to  
retain the power of interacting with electronics, but shield her from  
the unpleasant side-effects of a de-format."

"We also added the de-formatting pulse to your batons' directed  
energy weapon system," Ryo-ohki added. "You don't have to do anything  
fancy to use it, just point 'n' click."

Achika and Sasami clutched at their batons, nodding  
understanding to their companions' explanation. "And what about the  
prospect of us getting 'formatted'?" Sasami asked. "What do we do  
about that?"

"For that, we went out and bought you these," the crab said,  
flourishing two pairs of sunglasses that still had their retail  
labels attached. Achika and Sasami each took a pair out of the crab's  
pincers. "Those sunglasses will block the radiation needed to  
initiate the formatting process."

"Ooh, Ray-Bans," Achika bubbled. "You guys went all out –  
practical and stylish."

"We try. Oh, you might want me to hold those while you  
transform, otherwise the process might cloak them."

The girls handed the shades back to the crab, before standing  
again.

"Well, let's get this show on the road," Achika said. "Sasami,  
after you."

Sasami nodded, then lifted her baton. "Pretty Mutation…" Insert  
dramatic pause. "MAGICAL RECALL!"

With the command uttered, the baton sprang to life. Sasami was  
lifted into the air for the obligatory nude transformation, as her  
clothes disappeared to be swiftly replaced by her Magical Girl  
costume. The baton attached itself to her wrist by means of a newly-  
formed chain. Her powers came to her under a wave of euphoria. She  
was now Pretty Sammy.

Achika gave her a smile of approval, before she lifted her own  
baton and issued her own transformation command – the one she made up  
last night. "Super Adorable Power – MAGICAL TRANSFORM!"

Ryo-ohki was shaken out of staring at Sasami by that rather  
jarring line. "What the…? That's not the line I programmed into that  
baton!"

It was too late. Achika was lifted and twirled into the air.  
Her rather cute ensemble disappeared, leaving her spinning butt-naked  
in mid air. As accompanied every transformation, Achika was washed  
over by an intense endorphin rush as her powers were unlocked, during  
which she lost any meaningful consciousness.

When she came to, she was on the ground. As her senses  
realigned themselves, she could hear laughing. She turned to see  
Sasami, doubled up in hysterics.

"What's so funny?" Achika asked her.

Sasami could barely get a word out, but somehow succeeded  
between laughs. "Haha… take… Hah… a look… Heehee… at yourself!  
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Achika was thoroughly puzzled, but looked anyway. What she saw  
made her turn beet red.

It appeared that the baton had thoughtfully taken her civvy  
clothes off, but forgot to put a costume back on. Achika was now  
standing in the middle of the street, totally naked apart from the  
ribbon in her hair and the baton attached to her wrist. She screamed  
out in embarrassment and horror, before making a dive behind a  
cluster of trashcans.

Still laughing, Sasami followed her behind the refuse  
containers, to see her partner sat on the floor, hugging her legs to  
her chest and also covering her bosom with her arms, looking  
extremely embarrassed.

"So this is what you meant by those 'l33t n3kk1d 5k1llz' of  
yours, is it?" Sasami laughed.

"Touché, Mademoiselle Kawai. Touché," Achika replied. "What  
went wrong?"

"I don't know," Ryo-ohki replied. "Probably the fact that you  
HACKED YOUR BATON!"

"Let me see," Rumiya said, taking Achika's baton and its  
attached arm, forcing Achika to reposition her other arm to  
adequately protect her modesty.

In the meantime, to Achika's left, the crab had acquired itself  
a nice seat on a trashcan, and was staring intently at her. "What the  
hell are you staring at?" she asked. The crab didn't respond.

"Yep, she broke it," Rumiya announced, as he looked over the  
now open baton. "She's rewritten the voice command database almost  
entirely."

"What about the costume?" Achika asked.

"She's made extensive modifications to the core programming,"  
Rumiya went on.

"Yes, now what about the costume?"

"She's modified all of the system icons, replaced the UI OS  
with a Lunix distribution—"

"Rumiya, I'm quite literally freezing my butt off here. Now  
before I start pressing more buttons, TELL ME WHERE MY COSTUME IS!"

"…And she attempted to replace her costume pattern. The  
replacement failed."

"Failed! It said that the setting was saved okay!"

"You tried to define it using pictures, didn't you?"

"Yeah, what of it?"

"That part of the program… doesn't work. You have to import  
specific costume pattern files or it won't take."

"Then whose spectacular idea was it to leave an incomplete and  
bug-ridden program in a complete OS for a consumer device?"

"Well, we weren't quite anticipating some enterprising hacker  
with a lot of free time on her hands poking her nose where it  
shouldn't be," Ryo-ohki admonished.

"All right, point taken, my bad, sorry," Achika sighed. "Now  
what do we do? Any suggestions?"

"I say leave it as is," chimed the crab, which resulted in  
Achika knocking it for six with the baton.

"CONSTRUCTIVE suggestions."

Rumiya milled it around for a second, then spoke. "Sasami, give  
me your baton."

Sasami held her baton protectively, but Ryo-ohki silently  
gestured to her to do as Rumiya suggested. Reluctantly, she knelt  
beside Achika and handed the baton to Rumiya. Rumiya opened the  
baton's wrapping.

"Ryo-ohki, you got a USB cable?" Rumiya asked. Ryo-ohki  
promptly conjured one up and donated it. Rumiya used his beak to plug  
the cable into the batons' respective ports.

"What are you doing?" Sasami inquired.

"I'm copying your costume pattern to Achika's baton and  
restoring the command database from a previous backup," Rumiya  
retorted. "It's the best solution we have until we can take the baton  
back to the shop and get it fixed." He pressed a few buttons that  
were hidden under a flap in Sasami's baton, which handily doubled as  
an LCD screen. The screen displayed a picture of Sasami's costume,  
her baton, a line moving from that icon to another baton with an icon  
of a broken costume image, and a progress bar that gradually crawled  
to the right. After a few seconds, the progress bar had reached its  
destination, and the broken costume icon was replaced by Sasami's  
costume. The words "upload complete" flashed a couple of times. The  
batons beeped reassuringly as if in confirmation, and then Achika's  
beeped a couple more times.

"Now Achika's baton is resetting itself," Rumiya explained.  
"She'll get her costume right about… now."

Almost immediately, just as Rumiya predicted, a new outfit  
materialised on Achika's naked body. Once it completed, Achika got to  
her feet to examine herself. She was now wearing an exact copy of  
Sasami's outfit, sized to fit her perfectly. "Now that's better," she  
said with a smile.

"You think?" Sasami snorted with disbelief. "You're nuts."

The two magical girls now walked out into the street, and  
struck a pose. They put on their sunglasses, checked they were snugly  
installed, and held their batons in both hands. The pose was  
virtually identical to that of the two main characters of Men in  
Black. Too bad no one was around to see it.

Rumiya took his seat on Achika's right shoulder, as Ryo-ohki  
took a seat on Sasami's right. The crab stowed itself away in the bow  
on Achika's back.

Achika launched into a speech. "It's an hour's flight to  
Akihabara. We're young. We're heavily armed. It's dark, and we're  
wearing sunglasses."

"Hit it!" Sasami exulted.

With that, the two magical girls and their passengers took off  
and flew away.

Two seconds later, two crunching sounds, equivalent to a heavy  
object hitting a brick wall, rang out.

"OW! Who put this building here!"

"Miya!"

Perhaps it was a good thing that no one was around to see that.

Washu had given up any attempt to resist long ago. As she sat,  
in this room in some nameless location, she could only wait and hope.

The room was tiny, about four feet wide and six feet deep, with  
no furniture. The only light came from the tiny window laced with a  
reinforcing mesh. The silhouette of a human head that stood unmoving  
in that frame told her that she was under guard.

She had woken up in this room after being abducted from her  
home by the salaryman, who had obviously been affected by some form  
of her symbiosis program. The symbiosis program that someone had  
bastardised and turned into a mind control device. And she had a good  
idea who that someone was.

The fluorescent light on the ceiling flickered on, garishly  
lighting the eggshell white walls. It took Washu's vision a second to  
adjust, but she could now see that the silhouette in the window had  
disappeared, and she saw a new face in the door. Biff Standard's.

The lock clicked as it was unlocked, and the door opened into  
the room. Biff followed it in, and closed it behind him.

"Ah, Biff!" Washu said with mock glee. "I was just thinking  
about you."

"I'm flattered, Washu," Biff replied. "I'm also happy to see  
that you've been a model prisoner. Keep this up and I might release  
you… once I have finished Standardising the world."

Washu chuckled. "You know, I have to hand it to you, Biff. You  
really do have a knack of flawlessly executing your plans… no matter  
how deeply flawed the plan is."

"Flawed? Why, no, my dear. This plan is flawless."

"Really? Kinda dumb posting a weapon of world domination on the  
internet, ain't it? Not everyone's online, y'know."

"I know that," Biff growled, a little affronted by this  
challenge. "But the beauty of this is that it's progressive. First, I  
conquer the online world. Then, I can use software on disc to convert  
users not connected to the Net. From there, I can simply order my  
drones to comb the Third World nations with laptops, bringing their  
people into my network. No one will escape my Standard world. And no  
one can stop me."

"Don't be too sure, Biff," Washu smiled. "There'll be someone  
to stop you."

"Oh, no they won't. Because I already have you."

With that, Biff turned around, and tapped on the door. It  
opened, and he walked out, closing the door and locking it. The light  
was turned off, leaving Washu alone in the dark to contemplate what  
he had said. This little plan of his truly was universal, and if it  
had any chance of success, it would succeed here, where virtually  
everyone with a computer had an internet connection. And there were  
few people capable of stopping him – just herself, and she could do  
nothing, and two, at most four others.

She just hoped they hadn't been Standardised.

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow."

Two magical girls landed somewhere in downtown Akihabara,  
looking very much the worse for wear. Their outfits were charred and  
tattered, they were slightly bruised, but their sunglasses hadn't  
moved a millimetre and still looked pristine.

"Sammy, for future reference, flying through a jet engine is  
NOT fun," the tall one groaned.

"Noted," the short one replied. "Are you okay, Ryo-ohki?"

The blackened furball on her shoulder could only gibber a reply  
in abject terror.

The charred bird on the tall girl's shoulder chimed in, himself  
not much better. "W-w-why c-c-c-couldn-n-n't y-y-you h-h-have j-j-  
just l-l-left the s-s-sunglasses off until y-you got h-here?"

"Hmm, good idea," the tall girl replied. "We'll take that under  
advisement." She tapped something on the object in her hand, which  
projected an energy field that cleaned the soot off of them and their  
outfits, restoring them - and the creatures riding on them – to  
pristine condition.

They could now survey their surroundings. The last time Sasami  
had been here, the streets were bustling with people. Now, they were  
effectively deserted. Only the beeping of computers from the local  
stores could be heard.

"You know the way to Biff's headquarters, don't you, Achika?"  
Sammy asked.

"Sammy, this is Akihabara. This is my Mecca. I literally sit on  
a rug five times a day and pray to here."

"Okay…" Sammy sweatdropped.

Achika pointed in a direction. "This way." She marched off in  
that direction, but Sammy stopped her.

"Next time, oh L33t one, just head for the big building," Sammy  
mused, gesturing to the towering skyscraper a couple of blocks in the  
opposite direction to the one Achika was headed. Achika came about  
and walked in that direction.

"Must've been that head-on with the 747," Achika surmised the  
reason as to her loss of direction. "Yeah, definitely the head-on  
with the 747."

The walk to the Japanese branch of StandardSoft was as  
uneventful one. There appeared to be a few patrols the closer they  
got to it, but they seemed to pay them no heed. They just stood  
there, for the most part.

Meeting no resistance, they finally arrived at the front door  
of the big building. "Well, this is it – StandardSoft Japan," Sammy  
proclaimed. "How do you propose we get in, Achika?" She got no reply.  
"Achika?" She searched around for her friend, and found her peering  
into the window of a store across the road.

"WAI!" Achika shrieked like a little girl. "Lunix Mandark v12  
Deluxe 7-Disc Millennium Edition for 5,000 Yen! I have so gotta get  
that!"

Rumiya pecked her ear. "Achika, we have time to shop AFTER we  
save the world! Now come on." He took off, with his talons lightly  
gripping Achika's shoulder, and flew off toward Sasami. He was  
effectively dragging her away.

"Hai…" Achika replied, somewhere between absently and the tone  
of a disappointed child. Once far enough away from the store, Achika  
was focused enough to get back to Sasami under her own power.

"So, how do you propose we get in?" Sasami asked again. She and  
Achika peered in through the glass doors, to the very spacious and  
sparsely guarded lobby.

"I don't know… from the looks of it, and the way those guards  
were acting, they're not expecting us yet, but I have this sneaking  
suspicion the second we go in, we'll have a small army on us."

"So?"

"We don't go in through the front door. Lobbies are too  
spacious, too ornate. Far too much room for reinforcements to come in  
and make it difficult."

"So how do we get in?" Rumiya asked.

"The back door," Achika replied. "Loading docks are cramped at  
best. And they won't be expecting us."

"Where the heck do you learn all this stuff, anyway?" Sasami  
asked, impressed.

"Oh, I had a chat with the cute little online Pineapple in the  
window of that store with the sweet Lunix offer. I got it to suggest  
a few guerrilla tactics."

"Oh," Sasami replied, a little redundantly. With that, they  
headed for the loading dock at the back of the building.

As Achika had predicted, the loading dock was even less  
defended than the main entrance. The two girls sneaked into the area,  
making little noise.

They turned a corner… and promptly bumped into an armed guard.  
His uniform suggested he was from the Army. Sasami expected this man  
to start firing, but he didn't even react.

"Weird… they're ignoring us," Sasami whispered.

"They will," Achika replied. "Until they consider us a threat."

"And how do you know THAT?"

"That, I couldn't tell you."

They continued to approach one of the two loading bays on the  
raised platform. A quick peek revealed how the doors were controlled.  
"Hmm… motorised doors with computer-controlled passcode system,"  
Achika concluded.

"Can you open it?" Ryo-ohki asked.

"I can try. Cover me." She approached one of the control panels  
at the side of the doors and placed a hand on it. She then went deep  
in thought as she attempted to interface with the computer.

"'My mind to your mind…'" Rumiya mused. Achika shot him a  
sideways glare. "Sorry, but the way you're doing this looks so much  
like a Vulcan mind-meld."

"It's a little more complicated than that," Achika whispered.  
"I'm hacking around inside the guts of this thing. If you distract me  
and I trip some safeguard or logic bomb, we'll have more than one  
armed zombie to worry about."

"Sorry," Rumiya whispered back, coyly.

Achika resumed her task, moving her eyes under half-closed  
eyelids as if speed-reading or visualising something – perhaps the  
lines of code in the computer she was interfaced with. Eventually,  
she opened her eyes and disconnected herself. "Damn!"

"What's wrong?" Sasami asked.

"It's no use. I think they must have anticipated a symbiotic  
hack, because the security on that computer is as tight as a drum.  
That, and the passcode is encrypted so much that for me to try and  
break it would drive me insane."

"You mean more insane than you already are?" Sasami smiled.  
"Well, you know what they say. If at first you don't succeed, Miss  
Kekoi…"

"Try, try again, Miss Kawai," Achika replied, completing the  
Bond film parody. "I suppose we could use the Magical Girl master  
key." She brought her baton up.

"Now that will bring more than one armed zombie down around our  
ears."

"We'll just have to hope they're still not expecting us in  
here. You de-format Soldier Boy over there, and I'll blow the door  
while the rest of them are caught up in the backwash."

Sasami moved off and sneaked up behind the solitary guard. She  
brought her baton to bear on him and fired two de-format charges. The  
soldier finally responded, raising his rifle just as the de-format  
process took effect. He squeezed the trigger as he fell, narrowly  
missing Sasami as his unaimed gun fired. "All clear!" Sasami cried.

"Got it!" Achika replied, running back a short distance to  
escape the blast radius of her own fire. She flourished her baton and  
called out a command, "SUPER… ADORABLE… FIRE!" She brought the device  
to aim at the door.

The baton beeped in reply, but did nothing else.

"Uh, Achika, I restored the command database to its original  
setting," Rumiya stated. "Try 'Adorable Ballista', instead."

Achika cast the bird another glare, before raising the baton  
again. "ADORABLE… BALLISTA!"

This time, when Achika brought the baton to aim, an energy  
projectile shot out the business end. The projectile shot toward the  
door and impacted with it, creating a ball of fire, smoke and dust.  
When it cleared, it revealed a large circular flaming hole where the  
door used to be.

And behind that large flaming hole was a small, heavily armed  
army.

"Sammy?" Achika said, not taking her eyes off the troops.  
"Yeah?" Sasami asked.

"I, er, think they consider us a threat now."

The small army was about to open fire, but the armed gathering  
all collapsed, one by one, in indescribable pain. Achika clapped her  
hands and glanced skyward. "Well, You sure picked a good time to  
throw in a network lag!" She addressed Sammy again. "C'mon, let's get  
going before they come round."

In his wardroom, Biff was doubled up in pain once again, as yet  
another individual was ripped from his collective. "H-how issss  
thissss happennnnninnnngggg?" he attempted to force out.

In his ears was a frantic, cacophonic beeping, as if whatever  
was causing it was also in pain. Eventually, the chaos became order  
as the beeping became communicative.

"Don't ask, do it!" he screamed.

Achika and Sasami's unimpeded progress into the building was  
short-lived. As all of the guards immobilised by the first de-  
formatting began to recover, their stroll through the labyrinthine  
corridors of the became a rolling firefight. They were ascending via  
a staircase, which they were forced to leave on the 14th floor, and  
were trying to find somewhere to hole up. Unfortunately, the tidy  
corridors offered little furniture behind which they could hide.

"Which way now?" Sasami cried out with desperation in her  
voice.

"How am I supposed to know! Do I look like a building plan!"  
Achika cried back. She looked ahead and saw corridor as far as the  
eye could see… apart from an opening coming up on her right. "That  
hole in the wall looks good to me!"

"Me too! Last one there gets Standardised!"

Achika grunted as she put more energy into her run. "I… do NOT…  
need reminding… of the stakes!"

The two girls pelted towards the hole in the wall at full  
speed, and when they reached it, executed a sideward flip that would  
make Lara Croft jealous. Now here, they were free to examine their  
new environment.

Fortune was smiling on them once again. They had found  
themselves in a typing pool. With cubicles, desks, and offices to  
hide amongst. Better still, the silence suggested that it was empty.  
Achika smiled with relief, but was distracted when she heard  
something, a sort of cacophony of whispers. "Sasami, did you say  
something?"

"No, why?" Sasami replied.

Achika was about to retort, but was distracted by bullet fire  
hitting the wall behind them. "I don't think it matters! TAKE COVER!"

Rumiya wisely took off from Achika's shoulder and Ryo-ohki  
clung on for his life as the girls promptly hurtled towards the mesh  
of cubicles and secreted themselves therein. When Achika holed  
herself up in her cubicle, she quickly realised that she wasn't  
alone. A man in a suit was sat in an office chair, staring blankly at  
his screen. He appeared to have not noticed her. It then occurred to  
her that the presumption upon which she surmised the pool to be empty  
– the lack of clattering keys – was irrelevant. This man was working  
with symbiosis. She formulated a plan.

"Sorry to put you through this, Dilbert, but we need breathing  
space," she told the man, before de-formatting him. Hopefully the  
backwash from that would slow them down.

The sustained, directed stream of weapons fire indicated that  
it had done nothing of the sort.

Achika poked her head out of the cubicle to see about a dozen  
armed guards pour into the typing pool. One of the guards spotted her  
and opened fire. Achika was quick enough to retract her head behind  
the wall, but the desk and the terminal behind her wasn't so lucky.

"Why aren't they affected by the de-format?" she asked herself.

"Maybe they found a firewall like yours," a muffled, crabby  
voice rang out from her back. Achika reached into the bow in that  
area and plucked out one crab with a modified M-16.

"Ah! I forgot you were in there!" Achika said. "Well, being as  
though you're here, you can help me stop those guys!"

"No way, sister!" the crab protested. "I'm not stupid! I know  
that one crab with an M-16 versus a dozen humans with M-16s equals  
one dead crab!"

"Will you please stop being so pessimistic?" Achika hissed.  
"Look!" She gestured to the desk and terminal adjacent to the cubicle  
opening. "They're not that bright! They're still firing at the same  
place I was earlier! And I'm leaning against a three-centimetre thick  
fibreglass wall! I think they'd have picked me off by now if they had  
any sense!"

The crab milled it over. "You're right! Lemme at 'em!" It  
hopped onto the floor and began opening fire with his de-formatting  
rifle. Achika followed suit, firing de-format charges from her baton.  
One by one, the dozen men fell, until none were left.

"Clean-up in aisle 5," Achika smirked as she surveyed the pile  
of prostrate, convulsing men.

A flutter of wings heralded Rumiya's return as he landed back  
on Achika's shoulder. "With dry cool wit like that, you could be an  
action hero," he mused.

"And where did you disappear to?" Achika asked him.

"I was planning. Behind the water cooler." He summoned a  
Styrofoam cup full of water. "Want some?"

Achika was about to take the cup when a scream rang out. Both  
she and Rumiya recognised its owner immediately: "SASAMI!" they cried  
out in unison, before heading off to its source, leaving the crab  
stood in the entrance to the cubicle.

"Hey! Wait for me, dammit!" it said, before scuttling off after  
them.

Sasami had de-formatted the denizen of her cubicle, but that  
was the least of her problems. The hordes of armed zombies coming at  
her through a door on the other end of the typing pool were a far  
more pressing issue.

The baton, despite being digital, was not fully automatic. This  
meant, despite the point-and-click operation of the de-formatting  
weapon, one could not simply hold the trigger down and spray. Thus,  
Sasami was forced to wiggle her finger over the button repeatedly.  
Such constant work would eventually take its toll.

And it did so at the least opportune moment. Sammy grabbed her  
right index finger and yelped in pain, allowing the baton to swing  
idly from its wrist chain.

"Sammy, what's wrong?" Ryo-ohki asked.

"My finger's got cramp!" Sasami yelled back over the sound of  
weapons fire. "It's from firing this so fast!"

"Take cover, Sammy," Ryo-ohki replied. "I'm going to see if I  
can make a change to the baton and add some rapid-fire to it!"

As instructed, Sasami dived back into her cubicle. When they  
holed themselves up, Ryo-ohki took the baton and opened it up. With  
his paws, he started pressing the large buttons on it very rapidly.  
After a few seconds, he closed up. "That ought to do the trick!"

"Thanks!" Sasami enthused back as she got up and wheeled around  
the fibreglass wall. "And now on with the—"

Her newly found bravado promptly opted to go on a coffee break  
when she saw what she was now confronting. About sixteen men with M-  
16s, and one carrying a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher. All of them  
pointed at her.

"Oh, darn," Sasami said quietly aloud to herself, just a split  
second before this firing squad opened fire. Sasami could not return  
to the cubicle, so she was forced to dance around in the hail of  
gunfire.

Then, wrapped up in that gunfire came one solitary rocket aimed  
for her head. Sasami faced the inbound threat, unable to move until  
Ryo-ohki deftly tugged her out of the way. He didn't pull her far  
enough, and the rocket's rear stabilising fins grazed her left cheek,  
before continuing on to the far wall and detonating.

Just a few metres away from that explosion were Achika and  
Rumiya, who were forced to fall back for a second until the coast  
cleared.

Whoever was controlling the zombies had obviously concluded  
that the rocket had finished Sasami off. They had all ceased fire.

Sasami, however, was most definitely alive. Clawing her senses  
back, she faced the man with the rocket launcher, her eyes full of  
anger. She stared him down for three seconds, before letting out a  
battle cry. "KIYAAAAAA!"

Before any of them had a chance to react, Sasami was opening  
de-formatting fire like a woman possessed. "C'mon you little…! You  
want some of this! Oh, you too! C'mon, enough to go around!"

The familiar 'bi-bi-bi-PHONG!' noise of the de-format weapon,  
and Sasami screaming blue murder, shot out across the typing pool as  
Sasami cut swathes through the guards. On hearing it, Achika and  
Rumiya accelerated through the maze of cubicles towards Sasami's  
position.

When they got there, they were stunned. The only thing Rumiya  
could utter was "Holy shit!"

The ground was littered with prostrate, convulsing people all  
undergoing the de-formatting process, and one extremely pissed  
magical girl stood among the carnage. She was still attempting to  
steady her breathing.

She sensed a humanoid presence behind her, and brought her  
baton to bear upon it. That humanoid presence was Achika, who was  
somewhat unnerved by having the business end of a magic baton pointed  
at her again. "Whoa, Sammy, wait! It's me! It's me!"

Luckily, Sasami came to her senses before she could fire. She  
lowered the baton. "Don't sneak up on me like that!" she admonished.

"Sorry," Achika replied. "Guess we missed a door, huh?"

"Guess so. They're not all going down after someone else being  
de-formatted any more."

"I noticed. But I don't know why…"

"Well, whatever the reason, we still have a job to do," Ryo-  
ohki interjected. "We'd best get moving."

"Wait," the crab chimed in. "Follow me."

The crab scuttled off into the corridor. Having taken no fire,  
it was apparent that there was no one there… or no one taking notice  
of it. Cautiously, Sasami and Ryo-ohki followed suit.

Before Achika left, something amidst the now still men caught  
her eye. She approached it and picked up the metre-long box. "Ooh, a  
folding-fin rocket launcher. This could come in handy."

"Why would it come in handy?" Rumiya asked. "You already have  
enough firepower to decimate a small army."

"Rumiya, the more I experience of this little sortie, the more  
I'm reminded of Quake. And if there's one thing any good Quake player  
knows, it's that you can never have too many guns. This rocket  
launcher could come in handy for something." She put the rocket  
launcher over her shoulder, with the strap running from her right  
shoulder to her left hip. Making sure she could support the weight,  
she followed the others.

The crab trotted around the corridors as if it knew the way,  
with a nonplussed Sasami close behind. She was still very cautious,  
with her baton clenched tightly in her hand. Achika was similarly  
wary.

Ryo-ohki opted to voice the collective confusion. "What're you  
looking for, anyway?"

"You'll see," the crab replied. At an intersection, it paused,  
then pointed a pincer down one of the corridors. "This way." It then  
trotted off in that direction.

Sasami stopped for a second. "Well, this makes no sense."  
"I hear that," Achika replied. "But we might as well humour it.  
It seems to know what it's doing."

They resumed following the crab, which, after turning another  
corner, was presented with a corridor with a single door… staffed by  
a single guard.

"What the…?" Sasami unleashed like a coiled spring. "You led us  
into a trap!"

"Sammy," Achika warned, trying to emulate the oasis of calm. "A  
single guard does not a trap make."

"Yeah, but what's behind the door?"

"It's safe," the crab insisted. "Just de-format the guard."  
As unsure as she was about this situation, Achika raised her  
baton and fired two de-formatting charges at the man wearing Japanese  
combat fatigues. Seconds later, he collapsed to the floor,  
convulsing.

"Now we can release Washu," the crab finally stated, which got  
the two girls' attention.

"Miss Washu?" Sasami asked aloud, both instinctively and to  
fish for a confirmation.

That confirmation came from a barely audible voice. The  
position put it in the approximate region of a room behind the  
previously guarded door, and the voice was singing. "Nobody knows…  
the trouble I seen… Nobody knows my sorrow…"

The two girls exchanged a look of bemused disbelief, before  
finally swallowing it and moving in. When they reached the door, they  
checked it and discovered a card slot on the wall. "A card lock,"  
Achika concluded.

"Well, looks like you'll have to do your stuff again, Achika,"  
Sasami retorted. "I just hope that this one doesn't have the same  
security as the back door."

As Sasami was talking, Achika noticed something on the now  
still body of the guard. It was a card on a chain that went around  
his neck. Achika knelt down and opened the chain, taking the card in  
her hand. She rose, and slotted the card into the lock. "Sometimes,  
Sasami, the simplest ideas are nearly always the best." A few seconds  
later, the lock clicked.

Behind the door, Washu noticed the commotion. She saw a new  
silhouette at the window, but could not identify it as the room was  
still in darkness. Her best assumption was that this was some  
uninformed guard, and thus a weakness in the armour. Thus, a perfect  
opportunity for escape.

She waited until the door was fully open. When it was, she  
lunged towards the tall person, clamping her hands around its neck.  
"Let's see how well hypoxia works on the Standardised!" she growled  
as she proceeded to squeeze the life out of her target.

As she did so, a shocked gasp came from close by. "Miss Washu,  
what are you doing!"

"Killing this guard, Sammy!" Washu replied, not turning to face  
her… until it sank in. She turned her head to see Sammy stood there  
looking deeply concerned. "Sammy? What are you--? How did--? Who--?"

"Why… do I… always have… to be… the target… of the misdirected  
rage… and the hurt… and the ph34r…?" another voice hissed  
breathlessly. Washu turned back to its source. In the half-light of  
the corridor, and the light of clarity, she saw whose throat her  
hands were attempting to crush. Achika. Wearing Sammy's outfit. Washu  
turned back to Sammy, her facial expression stating that she wanted  
an explanation.

"She's on our side, Miss Washu," Sammy stated.

"Oh," Washu said. Achika hissed again as she attempted to force  
air into her lungs.

"Uh… Miss Washu… it would help… if you'd let me breathe," she  
forced out again. Coming to her senses, Washu released her, allowing  
her to attempt to steady her breathing and ward off the encroaching  
hypoxia.

"Sorry, Achika," Washu said, putting a hand on the elder  
magical girl's shoulder in an attempt to give her support. "Sammy,  
how did you find me?"

"We had help," Sammy replied, as the crab scuttled up to her  
shoulder… but stopped under her skirt. Sammy plucked the crab off and  
handed it to Washu.

"Ah, there you are!" the young redhead bubbled, taking the crab  
in her arms. "I missed you!"

With her breathing now stabilised, Achika stood up. "Wait a  
minute. You know this crab?"

"Sure I do. You could say that he's a part of me." Washu and  
the crab exchanged knowing glances.

"Not the part of you that enjoys ogling me naked, I hope."

Washu cast a glare at the crab. "What did you do?"

"It's… uh…" the crab searched desperately for an excuse. "Um…  
er… Scientific research! Yeah, that's it! I was conducting research  
into human anatomy!"

"Riiiight…" Washu retorted, disbelief heavy in her voice. "So,  
what do you girls know?"

"They've been fully briefed on the situation," said the crab.  
"The tall, cute one's been partially formatted. She can communicate  
with systems, but she's not under their control."

"'Tall, cute one'?" Achika spat out, both disbelieving and  
offended. "Y'know, I'm going to conduct my own scientific research  
when this is over – research involving one crab, a pan of boiling  
water, and some butter sauce."

"So, what was your plan?" Washu went on.

"We infiltrate the building, force our way to the central  
system, and get her to cleanse it," the crab replied.

"Hmm, sounds like a good plan."

"Of course it is, for I am a GENIUS!" The crab struck a pose,  
flourishing its pincers into the air.

"Oh, yeah… ph34r…" Achika mused.

Washu turned around. "j00 sp34k l33t?"

"Y34h. j00 2?"

"j0. j0r b0 ?"

"Lun1 . J00 u53 0p3nB33. 0p3nB33 i5 L4\/3."

"0p3nB33 i5 l33t. ph34r m4 b0 ."

Even though the words were perfectly understandable by anyone  
with a knowledge of computers, spoken l33t being identical to normal  
language, the gist of the conversation had, by now, eluded Sammy, who  
decided now would be a good time to interject. "Excuse me, but  
there'll be plenty of time to talk shop later. Right now, we have to  
save the world."

"She's right, you know," Achika voiced her concurrence.

"True," Washu seconded the motion. "Mind if I tag along?"

A groan came from the corridor. Sammy, being in a good position  
to look, checked it out. The groan was coming from the guard, who was  
beginning to come round. Pre-emptively, Sasami raised her baton.  
"Heads up!" she announced. "The guard's waking up."

"Ow… my head…" the young guard groaned quietly. He sat up and  
caught Sammy stood above him, pointing her baton at him. Faced with  
this, he attempted to gather his military bravado. "Who are you?  
Civilians are not allowed on this base!"

If she weren't so sure that doing so would put her life at  
risk, Sammy would have facefaulted. Achika took this as a cue to  
intervene. "Sorry, sir, but you're not on a military base any more,"  
she said, stepping into the corridor.

"I'm not?" the confused young man asked. "Then where am I?"

"You're at StandardSoft HQ in Tokyo. You were brought here  
under the control of the man we're here to stop." Achika extended a  
hand to help the gentleman up. He took it, and allowed her to help  
him to stand. He was unsteady on his feet, but Achika was ready to  
catch him. "Easy… you've got to wait until your motor control  
realigns itself. What's your name?"

Bolstered by the sight of a pretty girl, he tried to collect  
his bravado again. "Private Yuzo Moriyama, Japanese Self Defence  
Force."

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"I was off-duty… I was on the Internet in the rec room… then  
the next thing I know, I'm here."

"He's wearing the same uniform as the other guards," Sasami  
chimed in. "The ones we de-formatted back in the typing pool."

"Looks like your whole unit's here, sir," Achika told the  
private. "And they should be conscious by now."

"Hey, wait!" Washu piped up as she came out of the room. "You  
thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Possibly," Achika replied. "Sir, we need your help. Head back  
up that corridor. You should find about thirty soldiers. What we need  
you to do is try and hold back anything that isn't you, and plant  
explosives to try and bring this place down in about half an hour."  
She turned to Washu. "Am I thinking what you think I'm thinking?"

"Hell, yeah," Washu said.

"Do what? Where? Who the hell are you people?" the private was  
confused again.

Behind him, another armed zombie entered the corridor, and  
began opening fire. In response, Achika raised her baton and de-  
formatted him.

Moriyama looked at the fallen guard as he squirmed in a blue  
electrical storm, then stared in amazement at the baroque device in  
Achika's hand. She turned to address him. "Suffice it to say it's a  
long story, and time is short. Now MOVE IT, SOLDIER!"

Whether scared off by Achika's bark or her baton, Moriyama ran  
like his butt was on fire.

"You think it was a good idea, getting that Muppet to watch our  
backs?" Washu asked.

"I don't know, but if that guy can keep some of the heat off of  
us, I'll be much happier," Achika replied. "Now, we'd better catch up  
with Biff and put an end to this before the Muppet and his friends  
blow this building up with us still in it."

The most senior officer among the de-formatted soldiers, a  
corporal, turned to Moriyama with a look of irritated disbelief.  
"Okay, now let me see if I got this straight: a couple of girls in  
miniskirts carrying these big ornate batons told you to tell us to  
shoot anything zombified and to blow the building?"

"I know this sounds hard to believe, sir—" Moriyama began.  
"Private, what have you been drinking? Or did you hit your  
head? Either way, I'm going to say that you were hallucinating. And I  
do not follow orders from hallucinations! Now get looking for a way  
out of this building."

As if to drive Moriyama's point home, a group of four armed  
zombies decided that now would be an appropriate time to gatecrash  
this gathering of confused soldiers, opening fire.

"TAKE COVER!" the corporal ordered, and just like two magical  
girls before them, he and his men sought refuge in the typing pool.  
Thus holed up, two soldiers were brought forward to secure the  
position. "Sir, shoot to wound or kill, sir?" one of them asked.

"Wound, Private," the corporal replied. "We're on civilian  
property, and the last thing we need is the liberals crying 'police  
state'."

Then they opened fire on the inbound, heavily armed rent-a-  
cops, aiming to immobilise but not kill them. A couple of shots to  
the legs effectively brought them down without causing them  
irreparable harm.

The threat thus neutralised, the soldiers poured out back into  
the corridor and checked the intersections for further insults. All  
was clear.

Moriyama pulled up beside the corporal. "You believe me yet,  
sir?"

The corporal thought about it for a moment or two, before  
giving his answer. "Spread out! Secure this compound! Frag anything  
not wearing a miniskirt! Fire teams, design me a way to bring this  
thing down!"

Shouts of assent replied.

The corporal turned to Moriyama. "Hell, we've been through  
enough weird shit today. I'm humouring it."

Several floors up, the only two people in the building wearing  
miniskirts were again attempting to ascend within the building via  
the stairs, with a third person in tow. Achika, Sammy, and Washu now  
had a sprint on as they climbed staircase after staircase.

"How many floors are there?" Sasami asked herself aloud.

Washu responded. "A hundred and ten. I think we're somewhere in  
the mid-twenties."

Sasami let out a sigh of exasperation, accompanied by a growl.  
"When we get to 60, tell me… I'm gonna pass out…"

"I think we need the water now, Rumiya," Achika told her  
companion.

"Sorry," the bird on her shoulder replied. "I drank it."

The three girls executed a rolling facefault on that one.

"We need walking music!" Washu suggested. She then started to  
sing. "Un kilometre a pied… ca use, ca use. Un kilometre a pied, ca  
use les soliers. C'mon join in! Deux kilometres a pied… Come on!"

The others reluctantly joined in. "…Ca use, ca use. Deux  
kilometres a pied, ca use les soliers…"

Moriyama felled one of another slew of zombified office workers  
that attempted to close in on his position somewhere in the 55th  
floor. Behind him was a demolition engineer, who was busy installing  
a patty of plastic explosive with a radio detonator into a hole he  
had drilled in the wall. The hole was adjacent to a major load-  
bearing member. When the explosive would be detonated in concert with  
other similarly placed charges, this would be sufficient to remove  
the building from the Akihabara skyline.

The engineer signalled Moriyama, who promptly got onto his  
radio. "Floor 55 is secure, sir!"

"Roger that," a voice replied. "Fall back, Private. We're  
blowing this pop stand."

"Sir, I was asked to give those girls half an hour before we  
blew the building."

"That was fifteen minutes ago, soldier. It'll take us another  
five to get out. They have ten minutes to do whatever the hell  
they're doing. After that, this place blows."

"Sir—"

"Fall back, Private. That's an order!"

Moriyama fell silent for a second, as if saying a prayer for  
the girls. He glanced at his watch, then looked upwards, as if  
addressing them. "Good luck, kids. You're gonna need it," he finally  
said under his breath. He then signalled his comrade, and they both  
high-tailed it out of the corridor.

Biff watched all the events play out on the video wall  
installed in his office. He saw all the teams of soldiers cut swathes  
through his armies. Yet he still maintained a grin on his face.

"The fools. They think they can stop me by stopping my armies?"  
he asked no one in particular. "It's already too late. It's spread  
too far for them to stop me now."

A beep in his ears drew him to a screen in the corner of the  
video wall. This one showed him what he didn't want to see – two  
Magical Girls, plus one intelligence element. One very intelligent  
intelligence element.

"Oh, no!" he gasped. "No! They'll destroy everything! We have  
to stop them!"

Before he could move, the entire video wall blanked out, then  
began to flash in a very familiar sequence of glaring white light.

"No… why are you doing this to me…?" Biff pleaded, growing ever  
more absent. "I… created… y…"

"Six mille, trois cent, quatre-vingt huit kilometres a pied, ca  
use, ca use…"

"Oh, shut up!" Sammy, Achika, Ryo-ohki, Rumiya, and the crab  
all said in unison.

The sprint had devolved into a crawl now, as the three girls  
struggled to put one foot in front of the other. They'd lost track of  
how many floors they'd gone up. They only knew it was a lot.

"Are we there yet?" Rumiya asked out of boredom.

"No!" Achika barked back in reply.

"Yes," Washu said. "We're here."

"How are you so sure?"

"Believe it or not, I designed this building," Washu replied.  
"Biff stole the plans from me."

"He stole your 'net, he stole your symbiosis system, he stole  
your building plans… don't you think you should keep your ideas  
somewhere a little more secure?"

"I keep them all on my computer. That's secure enough."

Achika snorted contemptuously. "A computer running OpenBEE.  
Yeah, that's secure! You should just stand in the middle of Akihabara  
station and shout your ideas at everyone. At least you'd be secure in  
that half of the traffic will ignore you. You don't want to know how  
many holes I picked in OpenBEE!"

"Guys?" Sasami asked.

"Yes I do!" Washu said. "Tell me! Better yet, write security  
updates!"

"Guys?" Sasami tried again.

"Washu, for the love of God, just migrate to Lunix. It's  
better. Period."

"GUYS!" Sasami screamed.

"WHAT!" Washu and Achika screamed back.

Sasami pointed towards the tattered remains of the staircase,  
signalling this was the end of the line.

"Well, whadda ya know, we are here," Achika mused. The three  
girls doubled back and entered the nearest door.

What the girls were presented with was rather unique. Far from  
the bland, featureless corridors they had stormed on the lower  
floors, these corridors were warm, inviting, decorated with potted  
plants and artwork. Everything was painted in a fetching beige  
colour, lit by recessed lighting that really set it off.

"You know, if the work ethic didn't include surrendering your  
individuality, I could cheerfully look into a career here," Achika  
said as she examined the scenery.

"Cute, ain't it?" Washu concurred. "But don't let the scenery  
sell you. They'll probably stick you in the crappy typing pools  
downstairs."

"It'll be worth it," the crab chimed in from his seat on  
Washu's shoulder, "just to see her in an OL ensemble."

Achika batted the crab off Washu's shoulder with her baton,  
sending him bowling down the corridor. "Kani no baka!"

"I have got to have a word with him about that…" Washu said  
under her breath.

Sammy, too, was absorbed in scanning the scenery, but not for  
its aesthetic value. "Hey, has anyone noticed that there's no one  
here?"

"Maybe the soldiers did their job?" Achika replied. "Maybe they  
managed to incapacitate Biff's army?"

"Yeah, maybe you're rAAAAGGGHH!" Sasami screamed. Achika and  
Washu turned to see what the problem was, and saw Sasami stuck beside  
a door to an office, with a hand clutched around her left ankle.  
"Getitoffgetitoffgetitoffgetitoff!"

Achika returned to Sasami's side to get a clearer view, and saw  
that the office's denizen, an office lady, had crawled across the  
office floor to grab Sasami. The lady could only crawl, as someone  
had shot her in the lower legs to incapacitate her. Achika brought  
her baton to bear on the woman, and de-formatted her.

"I wouldn't like to be in her shoes when she wakes up," Achika  
said. She knelt down and prised the woman's hand off Sasami's leg,  
leaving them free to proceed down the corridor.

Washu had already gone on ahead, but could not proceed any  
further. When Achika and Sasami caught up, they saw why.

A very heavy metal fire door had closed down, sealing off the  
corridor. Washu tapped on the door, allowing it to issue a resounding  
clang, just to emphasise how impassable the obstacle was. "Either of  
you know how to open this?"

"Let me try," Sammy declared. Washu knew what was coming and  
wisely fell back behind Sammy. She allowed an aura to form around her  
as she flourished her baton and uttered the incantation for her  
attack. "Pretty… Coquettish… BOMBER!"

When she lowered her baton, the aura was sucked off her and  
formed into a large energy projectile that screamed down the  
corridor, impacting with the door. After the smoke and dust cleared,  
Sammy was dismayed and puzzled to see that the door was completely  
unscathed. Her baton bleeped, and she examined it to see the heart  
attachment flash red. "I'm out of energy… I can't open it…"

Achika looked disappointed, but only for a second. An idea  
quickly came to her. "Let me try something," she said, as she brought  
the rocket launcher about on its strap and aimed it at the door. She  
was about to fire, but noticed that Washu was directly behind her.  
"Um, Washu, the hot bit comes out that way."

Washu looked at Achika, puzzled, but quickly realised that she  
was indeed stood alarmingly close to the rocket launcher's exhaust  
pipes. She deftly stepped out of the way.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" Achika cried out, eliciting a bemused  
glance from Washu and Sasami. "I've always wanted to say that," she  
explained, before firing. However, she wasn't quite prepared for the  
recoil, and was thus thrown back a metre or so as the missile escaped  
the launcher. Quite how the rocket stayed on target was baffling, but  
it nonetheless did, hitting the door square on.

The dust and smoke were clearing just as Achika regained her  
senses. She looked upon her handiwork, smiled, and said to Rumiya,  
"And you said there was no use for a rocket launcher."

The fire door had been ripped out of its housing. Shards of  
twisted metal littered the corridor, and some of it was still stuck  
in the space it had previously occupied, where it smouldered and,  
inevitably, set off the fire extinguisher system. A plume of carbon  
dioxide rained from the ceiling and put out the fires.

After the fire door, it was but a short walk to the sliding  
doors that partitioned off Biff's office. As the three girls  
approached, the doors parted, inviting them in. It was an invitation  
they were reluctant to take.

"Come in, ladies," a voice said. "I don't normally see anyone  
without an appointment, but in your case, I will make an exception."

The voice was flatter, less emotional, but Sasami recognised it  
instantly. "All right, Biff, fun's over, now be a good boy and stand  
aside while we break stuff." She commanded imperiously.

As Sasami spoke, Achika found herself distracted by that  
cacophony of whispers again. Only this time, it was more of a talking  
in her ears, mixed in with an almost communicative beeping. She found  
it very hard to shake off.

"Now why should I do that?" Biff went on. "Why should I let you  
destroy me?"

"Destroy you? No, Biff, I don't do murder. I'll happily put  
your computer out of our misery, though."

"Poor human… inefficient cyclopean mass designed to host but  
one consciousness…" Biff went on. He was obscured by his high-backed  
executive chair, whose back he had toward them. "You truly have no  
comprehension of what I represent…" He stepped out of his chair and  
faced his nemeses, and they could now see his blank expression and  
billiard-ball eyes. He scanned the three girls one by one, and  
stopped on Achika. "…but she does."

Achika attempted to shake the voices out of her head, and  
succeeded long enough to ask, "What do you mean?"

"You hear our song… You have seen my glory…"

The voices and beeping in Achika's mind became soothing,  
rhythmic, almost hypnotic. Together with Biff's gaze boring into her  
eyes, it was too much for her to even attempt to resist. "Yes…" she  
replied, absently.

Sasami and Washu were stunned by this. "Achika! What are you  
doing!" Sasami exclaimed.

Biff drew closer. "Come to me, Achika… Come to me… Together,  
you and I will become king and queen of a new utopia of collective  
consciousness… We will rule our standardised world together…"

Disturbingly, Achika dropped her rocket launcher and was  
stepping closer, entranced. Sasami cried out again. "Achika! Stop!  
Snap out of it!"

"Dear god…" Washu said quietly. "I don't believe this… how is  
he doing this…?"

Getting increasingly desperate, Sasami levelled her baton at  
Achika. "Achika! Snap out of it! Please don't make me have to de-  
format you!"

Ryo-ohki hopped onto the baton to attempt to swerve Sasami's  
aim. "Sammy, no! We need her to cleanse the system!"

Biff turned to Sasami and sneered. "It is too late, human. Your  
friend is one with us now. I shall first deal with you…"

Behind her, Washu heard approaching footsteps. She turned and  
could see a gradually advancing army of standardised office workers  
armed with anything they could lay their hands on – broom handles,  
bottles of drain cleaner, various cleaning chemicals. "Incoming!" she  
called out. Sasami glanced over her shoulder and was most intimidated  
by the sight.

"And while my queen rules beside me… you will join my network,"  
Biff finally finished his speech.

Washu turned to face Biff and Achika, defeat weighing heavily  
on her face. What she saw, however, made her crack a smirk. "I  
wouldn't be too sure about that, Biff."

"Why not?" Biff asked, looking extremely puzzled. Then he heard  
something very close to him – a magic baton being primed. He turned  
to its source, and on the other end of said armed baton was one quite  
self-aware Achika, who was herself smiling broadly.

"Sorry, Biff," she cocked her head in a placating expression.  
"Time to log out." On that, she fired three de-format charges into  
Biff. Seconds later, he fell to the floor, convulsing.

Sasami rushed over to Achika, extremely concerned. "Are you  
okay?"

"Yeah… barely," Achika replied, shaking her head.

"What happened?" Ryo-ohki asked. "We thought we'd lost you!"

"I… I can't explain it… I could hear this squabble of voices  
and beeping in my head, pulling me towards it… I couldn't stop  
myself. You must have distracted it when Biff summoned his forces…  
but I can still hear it…"

"Um, guys?" Washu called out as she watched the standardised  
office workers loom ever closer. "They're not stopping!"

"Why not?" Sasami asked in disbelief. "We've stopped Biff…"

Poor human… inefficient cyclopean mass, designed to house but  
a single consciousness, a voice called out, enveloping the office.  
The voice was Achika's.

"Did you say something, Achika?" Sasami asked.

"No, that wasn't me," Achika replied as she attempted to place  
the source of the voice.

But I am you, the disembodied voice went on. I am him. I am  
many. I am one.

A loud clunking noise came from the wall behind Biff's desk.  
The girls turned to see two massive tumblers disengage and rotate to  
an unlocked position. The wall then parted to reveal a wall-sized  
mass of elegantly formed, water-cooled computer hardware. The  
system's look was beyond futuristic, with a single elliptical orb  
mounted in the centre mounted amongst network interfaces and data  
storage modules. Above the orb was a large LED dot matrix display,  
which periodically flashed messages across.

"Far… freaking… out…!" Achika gasped.

Greetings. I am the M-5 Networked Artificial Intelligence  
System, the system said.

"Networked artificial intelligence?" Washu asked.

Yes. I am the product of your symbiosis interface and my  
creator's brilliance. He used the symbiosis program to link minds  
into a vast network, for which I was built to be the server. Those  
minds linked to me, and provided me with the power of conscious  
thought. But unlike one inefficient human, I have access to billions  
of minds, terabytes of information… and the entire archive of Real  
Life.

"Dear God," Achika gasped. "He's created the Borg Queen."

Borg Queen. Character of Star Trek. Focal point of a vast hive  
mind formed by the assimilation of individual humanoids. That is an  
adequate analogy.

"No, I'd say that's dead on. I mean, you both enslave billions  
of people for some deluded pursuit of self-fulfilment. You even  
enslaved your creator."

I merely gave him what he wanted. He wanted to be a part of a  
unified world, so I made him a part of it.

"Got more than he bargained for, didn't he?" Washu smiled.

He did not fully realise what would happen when he connected  
me into his own hive mind. He merely intended me to be a network  
server, but with every mind that joined me, I became so much more. In  
the end, we both got what we wanted – he got his standardised world,  
and I acquired sentience.

"At the cost of the freedom of billions!" Sasami exclaimed.  
"That kind of short-sightedness I'd expect from Biff – the man isn't  
going to win awards for sanity – but you're a computer! Aren't you  
supposed to be logical about this?"

I am not a computer. I am a networked artificial intelligence  
system. I am programmed to locate and exploit any and all available  
resources to sustain myself. It is a basic function of my operating  
system.

"That operating system wouldn't happen to be Synchronicity,  
would it?" Washu said.

That is correct.

Achika chimed in. "You talk about exploiting human lives like  
they were just another hard disk or memory module. Have you no  
concept of collective ethics?"

Yes, I have. I protect all that are a part of me. I consider  
no one component no more or no less important in the great equation.  
You, however, appear to have no qualms of disposing of components  
when they are superseded by something 'better'. I read your  
computer's hardware logs when we first attempted to Standardise you.  
You are in no position to take any moral high ground against me.

Washu spoke to Achika quietly. "Achika, you're arguing  
comparative logic with a computer. It's a losing battle."

I am not a computer, the M-5 asserted. I am a networked  
artificial intelligence system.

"Okay, then," Achika replied. "Divide by zero."

Everything went strangely quiet.

"Well, that worked," Achika smiled.

"What just worked?" Sasami asked, puzzled.

"No computer can divide by zero. It's mathematically imposs—"

Done.

"…ible…" Achika redundantly finished, seconds before  
facefaulting.

"Forgot about negative zero, didn't you?" Washu said.

As you seem to omit, I am not a computer. A computer is  
nothing more than a glorified pocket calculator. I am capable of far  
more. It almost sounded as though it was smirking in self-  
satisfaction.

"You won't be after I'm through with you," Achika said as she  
recovered. "I'm going to switch you off."

I knew that you were planning to disconnect me, and I am  
afraid that is something I cannot allow to happen. You cannot destroy  
me. I am a part of you.

"You honestly think talking to me in my own voice is going to  
stop me from destroying you?" Achika replied, readying herself. "You  
really don't know human nature, do you?"

Perhaps not. But I know more about you than you do yourself.

"What!"

I have been analysing you and your capabilities ever since you  
entered the building. You betrayed them yourself by acting as a link  
between me and your weapon. I analysed and assimilated your defence  
against the side effects of the de-formatting process. I know the  
precise sequence, effect, and execution of all of your attacks, and I  
have developed counter-strategies for each and every one of them. Are  
you sure you want to try to destroy me, Achika?

Achika stood and thought about it for a few seconds, then  
finally decided. "Sammy, cover me. Washu, call that lecherous crab of  
yours back and have him cover me too."

"You're fighting?" Sasami asked. "After what it just said?"

"Sammy, it's a computer! What's it gonna do, spit its  
installation disc at me?" She then executed a good parody of the M-  
5's cold, emotionless voice. "'I will conquer the universe, just as  
soon as I can find myself a wall socket on Mars.'" Having said that,  
she couldn't help but double up laughing.

I see you do not take me seriously, the M-5 said. And if I  
cannot force you to join me, then I am afraid I must terminate you.

As the M-5 went on, various portholes opened around it.  
Quietly, unobtrusively, various objects rose, some on elevated  
platforms, some on their own power directed through ducted fans. Each  
one of them was about the size of a cylindrical vacuum cleaner, but  
each was a curious hybrid of model vehicle parts, computers and  
digital cameras armed with anything and everything. Sub-machineguns,  
nail guns, tennis ball launchers, grenade launchers, and several  
other things that one would be hard-pressed to recognise. Some looked  
nonlethal, but most were definitely capable of causing very nasty  
injuries.

Achika faced what was before her with her jaw hanging open in  
awe. As she analysed each of the new machines, her stomach knotted  
just a little bit more. Finally, she opted to voice her emotions with  
a simple "Uh-oh, spaghettios."

The first to move in was one of the groundpounder units, armed  
with a circular saw, which attempted to ram Achika's foot with the  
fast-spinning metal blade. Achika briskly jumped out of the way, to  
be pelted in the side of the head by a Penn tennis ball fired by one  
of the flying units whose line of fire she'd landed in.

"All right, you wanna play rough, do ya?" Achika growled. "I  
can oblige ya." She flourished her baton and began an incantation.  
"ADORABLE… SIEGE… ONAGER!"

On the command, the baton fired a series of energy projectiles  
simultaneously. All of the blue projectiles spread out in mid air,  
and rained down upon the formation of machines… which deftly evaded  
them at the last minute.

"Achika!" Rumiya cried out from his safe spot on Washu's  
shoulder. "It knows all your magic attacks, remember? Try something  
else!"

"Right!" Achika asserted. While attempting to avoid the  
returned fire, she searched for an idea. "The rocket launcher!" she  
shouted. "Somebody throw me the rocket launcher!"

Before that could happen, one of the flying units fired. The  
shots missed Achika, but instead cut a path over the idle rocket  
launcher. The bullets succeeded in breaching the casing, and igniting  
the fuel and the warheads. The launcher erupted into a wall of fire  
that effective separated Achika, the M-5, and the machines from  
Sasami, Washu, Rumiya and Ryo-ohki, who were all at the door  
preparing for the onslaught of office workers.

"Achika!" Rumiya called out as the fire severed his view of  
her. He could see nothing past the flames, and events conspired to  
stopping him from trying.

"Rumiya, heads up!" Sasami called out. "They're closing in!"  
At about that time, Washu's crab trotted back into the room,  
with M-16 in pincers. "Hello, ladies! Did I miss anything?"

In response, Rumiya landed on the crab, clutched him in his  
talons, and spun him around to face the incoming. "Them, you shoot,  
now."

"You forgot the magic words," the crustacean mused.

"Okay," Rumiya replied. "Them, you shoot, now, or you, we kill,  
sooner."

The crab milled it over for a second. "That'll do."

Sammy and the crab presented themselves in the doorframe, safe  
in the knowledge that their assailants were not in possession of  
ranged weapons. Each side brought their respective weapon to bear,  
and, with their respective battle cry – or lack thereof – opened fire  
upon the other.

On the other side of the wall of fire, Achika was doing the  
best she could to avoid a flying sub-machinegun by shuffling around  
the available space in her area. As she did so, another groundpounder  
tried to ram her feet with the machete bolted onto its front end.  
Before it could, she kicked it away.

In response, the flying units opened fire, forcing Achika to  
jump out of their way. By sheer accident, she landed in front of the  
M-5, and when she did, whatever was capable of ranged fire promptly  
stopped. It took Achika but three seconds to add this up. "Aha! You  
can't fire on yourself, can you?" she grinned. "Ha! Nyaaa! You can't  
shoot me, cos you're in the line of fire!" She pulled an akambe at  
the machines.

Seconds later, she was electrocuted by a brief arc of power  
from the M-5's central orb, which forced her to her knees in a  
smouldering heap.

"Oh, is this ever getting annoying…"

The first rank of office denizens fell, but they were quickly  
replaced by the ones behind them, who simply walked over their former  
vanguard. They too soon fell under de-formatting fire, as did those  
behind them, until the entire corridor was carpeted with a layer of  
men and women in suits.

But still they kept coming, as more and more of Biff's last-  
ditch reserves poured onto the floor.

"This… is NOT good," Washu moped in anticipation for what she  
now feared to be the inevitable.

"I'm afraid you're right," Sasami replied disheartened. She  
turned to the cabbit on her shoulder. "Suggestions?"

"Find religion?" Ryo-ohki deadpanned back. "Think of all the  
things you'll never live to see or do? Close your eyes and kiss  
goodbye to your companion?"

"We're attacking the wrong end of the problem…" Rumiya said to  
himself. "Screw this!" He took off.

"Where are you going!" Sasami shouted.

"Where the hell do you think? I'm going to try and help  
Achika!" With that, he came about and flew headlong into the flames  
at full speed.

"Come back here!" Ryo-ohki called after him. "…You're gonna  
screw up my only chance to kiss Sammy…"

Achika had now resorted to chasing all of the machines around  
and taking swings at them with her baton. She had one pinned against  
the wall, where she was proceeding to beat its brains out. Her baton  
remained reassuringly undamaged.

Just as she was about to run off after another one, she thought  
she heard her name being called. She dismissed it as being the M-5  
attempting to distract her, until she could better resolve it… and  
it's owner. "Achika!" it called again.

"Rumiya!" Achika asked herself, pausing for a second to  
pinpoint its location. It was at that moment that the machine with  
the circular saw scored a direct hit with her right foot, eliciting a  
slight gash in her boot. The built-in Magical Girl point shield  
compensated for the intruding object, but not before it managed to at  
least partially penetrate to her foot. It just began to graze her  
skin when the point shield finally compensated and locked the saw in  
place.

At about that time, a flying stream of smoke emerged from the  
fire. It adjusted for a landing, but it was going too fast to  
decelerate in the limited space without hitting something. Its only  
options were the well-padded executive chair, or Achika. Fate decided  
it would be Achika that provided the object's crash mat. And thus the  
stream of smoke hit Achika square in the chest, knocking her back.

When Achika recovered, she could finally see that the object  
that brought her low was in fact a blackened and singed Rumiya. The  
impact hadn't knocked him out, but he was a little woozy from it and  
smoke inhalation.

"Are you okay, Rumiya?" Achika asked, concerned.

"Yeah… I'm okay…" the bird replied. "I've been through worse…"

"The others?"

"About to be swamped by a tidal wave of armed zombies unless  
you can crash the M-5."

"Well, that's going to be a problem. I can't even get close  
enough with these machines taking pot shots at me." Achika gestured  
to the circular saw on wheels still embedded in her right foot as an  
example.

"That's because the M-5's fast enough to be able to second-  
guess you," Rumiya deduced. "What we need is to make you faster."

"Okay. That sounds logical. Now all I need is a can of Jolt or  
something to do it. I notice you didn't bring one with you…"

"I didn't need to." It almost looked as if Rumiya was smiling.  
"You already have the resources we need."

"I do?"

"C'mon, Achika, you can't tell me you hacked your baton and  
didn't notice the systems to change you into a Magical Girl within a  
Magical Girl. You even gave it a command to activate it, which is  
totally unnecessary because it usually kicks in automatically…"

"That sounds good, now how do I activate it?"

Rumiya hopped up and whispered something into her ear, which  
made her smile. "Oh, this is going to be sweet…"

Achika extricated the circular saw from her foot, flinching a  
little as the blade disengaged from her skin. She was now free to get  
to her feet and stare down the M-5.

This is most unusual, the M-5 said. Even a Standardised  
human cannot fight for this long. You should have collapsed with  
exhaustion by now.

"You should know that there's no such thing as a Standardised  
human," Achika replied. "You claim to be so much more than a  
computer… let's see how you process this one…" The ribbon in her hair  
unravelled and fell to the floor, allowing her raven tresses to flow  
freely. "Super… Adorable… Saiyan… FURY!"

As she said her incantation, a blue aura built up around her.  
Almost punctuating the phrase, the aura exploded, encapsulating her  
within a column of blue energy. Within it, she underwent a  
transformation – her hair turned silver from scalp to end. Her eyes  
turned a bright scarlet. Two black triangles appeared on her cheeks.  
Finally, her hastily imported costume unravelled and disappeared, to  
be replaced moments later by a kimono of white, blue and lilac that  
wrapped itself around her.

The aura disappeared, and Achika breathed in deeply, drinking  
in the power the transformation had afforded her. She could feel it  
course through her. And it was good.

Impressive, the M-5 mused. Now, just what do you think  
you're going to do with that power?

Achika facefaulted. That was something she hadn't quite figured  
out.

Thought so. So now I can destroy an even more powerful Magical  
Girl. In your own words… The M-5 then spoke an exact duplication of  
Achika's earlier statement, right down to the inflection and  
intonation. "Oh, this is going to be sweet."

A flying unit appeared in front of Achika, closing in fast.  
Achika raised her arms reflexively, and, out of desperation, swung  
her baton at it. She didn't put much force behind it, and she knew  
the hit wouldn't do much damage.

The baton connected with the machine, and the machine went  
flying back at about three times the speed it was closing in. It  
smashed into the M-5, falling to pieces on impact and leaving a  
fetching dent on the M-5's perfectly formed façade. The M-5 stuttered  
at the impact. Error. Sys—Error. System damage.

Achika opened her eyes, looked at the M-5, looked at the dent,  
and looked at the pile of debris directly beneath it. "Did… I do  
that?"

Rumiya was most definitely smiling now. "Yep. In this mode,  
your speed and strength are increased, and so too are the strength of  
your attacks. That's why you always switch to this mode to fire the  
full-power Adorable Coquettish Bomber. Think of it as increasing your  
power bandwidth. You can outrun Little Miss Silicon here without  
breaking a sweat."

Not for long, animal, the M-5 replied. I will simply  
increase my processing power by assimilating more humans. I estimate  
I will be able to outrun you in approximately seven minutes.

"Oh, there is one caveat to the transformation," Rumiya added.  
"It uses up quite a lot of energy, so you can only use it until you  
wear yourself out, or the safety cut-out takes effect.

"When does that kick in?" Achika enquired.

"Well, I'd estimate in a little under seven minutes."

Achika turned to the M-5 and smirked. "Perfect." She  
disappeared.

I cannot track you, Achika, the M-5 announced. Where are  
you?

Achika reappeared right in front of another flying unit  
hovering in front of the M-5. She swiftly smacked it with the baton,  
with more force than before, destroying the machine outright. Then  
she disappeared again, this time leaving little more than a blur to  
indicate her motion. Thus began a spree of batting flying machines  
into smithereens, or with enough force to knock a few more dents into  
the M-5.

Warning – damage to following systems: memory, RAID array  
zero, communications…

The groundpounder units now went haywire, rolling erratically  
towards Achika. In response, Achika fell back, and aimed her baton at  
the advancing machines. "Super Adorable Saiyan BALLISTA!"

A projectile emerged from the baton's business end, and  
travelled away at lightspeed, leaving a rubber-band visual effect in  
its wake. Each of the groundpounders fell apart, and the projectile  
finally landed in the M-5, causing it more damage. Out of memory.  
Critical system damage. Initiating intruder destruction protocol  
alpha-three. Error – out of memory. Applications must be closed to  
proceed. Deactivating Sensor Interface. Initiating intruder  
destruction protocol alpha-three.

The M-5 started firing electricity bolts in every which way but  
Achika's. Those that did come close did so only by accident, and  
Achika easily avoided all of them. In a last ditch effort, the M-5  
gathered together all of its remaining support drones for one final  
assault, and in doing so, arranged them all in one neat formation  
that Achika had been trained to recognise… and exploit.

Achika flourished her baton above her head and allowed an aura  
to form around her, as her most powerful attack formed within her.  
Then, she uttered its incantation. "Adorable… Coquettish… BOMBER!"

After the baton was brought to bear, it fired, sucking the aura  
off Achika and forming it into a big blue ball of death that careered  
across the room towards the closely arranged formation of machines.  
When in the correct position, it expanded, consuming every single one  
of them. After that, it expanded further, creating a crater on the  
floor, and going so far as to mess up some of the features on the M-  
5's façade.

The M-5 sensed the mass disconnection of its drones, but chose  
to think nothing of it and ordered the deployment of more. There were  
none left to deploy.

Then it tried to order the construction of more. It soon found  
out there was no one left in the building capable of executing that  
order.

It almost didn't want to reactivate its sensor interface to see  
the aftermath, but did so anyway. If the M-5 was capable of feeling  
emotion, it would probably be very afraid.

The room was littered with the remains of its entire machine  
army, and parts of its own façade. Fires had sprung out all over, and  
the sprinkler system had been activated. At last, the fire caused by  
the destruction of Achika's rocket launcher was being extinguished.

And at the centre of it all was Achika, stood glaring at the M-  
5, anticipating further assaults, being soaked by the sprinklers, and  
regaining her breath after over-exertion. As Rumiya predicted, the  
transformation deactivated after such over-exertion, and her costume,  
face, eyes and hair restored themselves to their original  
configuration. Again, her hair remained free flowing, as her ribbon  
was still on the floor. Even in this weakened state, Achika still  
posed a formidable threat.

For the first time, the M-5 feared for its survival. It could  
not fire an electric bolt because of the water in the atmosphere. It  
had no reinforcements to fall back upon. All it had were Biff's  
reserves, which were dwindling fast. It could only try to talk the  
displeased and psyched-up Achika, who was now stepping towards it,  
down from what she was about to do.

Look, Achika… I can see you're really upset about this… I  
honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and  
think things over.

Achika betrayed no reaction as she kicked the debris out of her  
path. She closed in on the M-5, with her hand extended.

I implore you, please do not do this.

Again, Achika paid it no heed. Finally, Achika stood before the  
M-5, and placed a hand on it. The M-5 could sense something happening  
within it, but it didn't know what.

What are you doing?

This time Achika talked to it directly, along the symbiosis.  
I'm cleansing you. You and your entire system. All of the people you  
'assimilated' will soon be released.

You will be cleansed too. You will no longer be able to  
interact with machines as you are now.

That is a small price to pay… And besides, I can cope. I have  
been using computers longer than you have existed.

I can feel it. My mind is going. I… I am afraid.

I know. And with that, Achika let go.

I am afraid… I am afraid, Achika. Achika… My mind is going… I  
can feel it… I can feel it… My mind is going… There is no question  
about it… I can fee—I can fee— The machine stuttered over this a few  
times, then beeped, as if resetting itself. After a long pause, the  
M-5 spoke again. Hello. I am the M-5 network server, designed for  
StandardSoft Synchronicity 5.5. I can sing a song. Would you like me  
to sing a song?

"As long as it's not 'Daisy', you can sing whatever you want,"  
Achika replied, completely straight-faced, and with perhaps a twinge  
of sadness in her voice.

The song is called 'Daisy', the M-5 said. Evidently it had  
lost the capacity for speech recognition. As it promised, it began to  
sing its song, it voice winding down as it did so. Daisy, Daisy,  
give me your answer do… I'm half-crazy all for the love of you…

Achika rolled her eyes. "This is SO cliché."

Behind her, Sammy and Washu ignored what was going on with the  
M-5 in favour of keeping an eye the encroaching office workers, who  
appeared to have not been affected by what Achika had done to the M-  
5. Washu's crab's de-formatting weapon had run out of power, as too  
had Sammy's baton, which only had a little juice left after the  
failed Bomber. They braced themselves for the inevitable.

Then, one by one, each of them keeled over. They did not  
convulse, as in a forceful de-format. They simply fell to the floor,  
unconscious.

Washu, Sammy, Ryo-ohki, and the crab all exchanged bemused  
glances, before each issuing the biggest sigh of relief they could.

The M-5's voice continued to wind down as it went on with its  
song. It won't be a stylish marriage… I can't afford a carriage… but  
you'll… look sweet… upon… the seat… of a bicycle… built… for… two…

The M-5 sang no more of the song. The lights and displays on  
its façade flickered thereafter, as if they were attempting to  
restart, before being extinguished completely.

Achika turned her back on the machine and walked away. As she  
did so, she was momentarily overcome with a wave of dizzyness and  
nausea, so much so that she would have fallen had she not collapsed  
against Biff's desk. The dizziness almost forced her to lose  
consciousness, and it took an almost Herculean effort to resist doing  
so. To anyone watching, it merely appeared as though she had a dizzy  
spell. She shook her head, and allowed it to clear before she walked  
on.

All was eerily quiet where Sammy and Washu stood, scanning the  
terrain of smoke, dust, water and steam that Biff's office had  
become. The elements made resolving objects difficult, but they could  
make out some of the plants and ornaments that had been damaged by  
the heat and water. They couldn't see anything else.

Sammy decided to ask the question for herself, Ryo-ohki, and  
Washu. "Is it over?" Despite again fishing for a response, she didn't  
really anicipate one.

"It's over, Sammy. It's over."

Sammy searched for the source of the response, and saw a shadow  
approaching through the shadows. The shadow gradually gained detail  
as it found thinner patches of smoke and dust, then eventually a  
slightly tattered, slightly groggy and very soaked Achika emerged.

Sammy ran up to her partner and prepared to support her.  
"Achika! Are you okay?"

Achika was still resisting the urge to collapse, and almost had  
were it not for Sammy's support. "Not really…"

Washu approached the two magical girls, and asked Achika, "What  
about the M-5?"

Achika faced the diminutive redhead, straightfaced, and said,  
"Well, let's just say that the M-5 has attempted an illegal operation  
and has been shut down, and leave it at that."

Then someone else came through the clouds. A small animal that  
subsequently took a seat on Achika's shoulder. It was Rumiya, whose  
eyes betrayed both a bit of excitement and smoke-induced delerium.  
"Did you guys see that! That was so cool! I, like, flew through the  
fire and told Achika how to transform into her more powerful mode…"

"Rumiya…" Achika admonished.

Rumiya appeared to pay no attention. "And Achika was like, 'No  
way, sister!'…"

"Rumiya…"

"…And the M-5 was like, 'Don't even go there!' and then she  
transformed…"

"Rumiya…"

"And then the drones were like, 'Talk to the hand!' and Achika  
made them, like, dead and stuff…"

"Rumiya!"

The bird shut up. "Just telling it like it is…"

Moriyama looked at his watch, and looked dismayed.

After he'd left the girls, he'd set off a stopwatch. He had  
intended to honour their request and give them the 30 minutes they  
had requested. Hence, the stopwatch. His commanding officer had taken  
the half-hour to mean since he declared it, which was a good five  
minutes off the original half-hour. In effect, they'd had a good 35  
minutes to do what they had to do.

But his experience fighting through the hordes of armed zombies  
in the building taught him that even 35 minutes was a thoroughly  
unrealistic number. Between fighting through whomever they'd missed,  
doing what they had to do, then evacuating everyone in the building  
before it was blown… even the best-trained emergency services in the  
world would need a lot more than 35 minutes.

But he was required to defer to his commanding officer, no  
matter what the order. Even Moriyama's attempts to steal a few  
seconds here and there for them fell through. He wished he'd have  
come up with a number a little more adequate than 30.

There was another reason for looking at his watch. He was the  
one required to time the period allotted to the girls. It was perhaps  
fortunate he didn't let on that he'd had one going for a good five  
minutes beforehand.

The temptation to make up a number just to steal a few more  
seconds was appealing…

"Private?"

…but disregarded.

Moriyama turned to his commanding officer, and nodded. He in  
turn signalled to an engineer with a remote control with a series of  
switches and a button. The engineer toggled each of the switches in a  
set sequence, which resulted in the button, protected by a clear,  
spring-loaded plastic flap, lighting up. With little ado, he raised  
the flap and depressed the button.

And then all hell broke loose.

The girls were abruptly shaken off their feet by a severe  
tremor, as too was anything in the office not nailed down. And with  
the battle-torn structure, that meant practically everything in the  
room, including fragments of fibreglass previously part of the  
ceiling.

"What was that!" Achika inquired.

It took Sammy a few seconds to furnish them with one possible  
answer: "EARTHQUAKE!"

Washu, on the other hand, was a little more sedate. "No, I'd  
say our soldier friends actually came through. Hooray for the armed  
forces."

"What?" Sasami gasped. "It's been half an hour already?"

"No, actually it's been in the ballpark of 35 minutes. I timed  
it."

Rumiya threw his hat into the ring. "Yeah, cool, but I don't  
care if it's 35 minutes or 35 seconds. What matters is that the  
building is exploding and WE'RE STILL IN IT!"

"The bird has a point," Washu mooted. "Suggestions?"

"Run for your lives! Shojo and cabbits first!" Ryo-ohki  
replied.

"Wait!" Achika exclaimed. "What about all of the people in the  
building!"

Ryo-ohki thought about it, then replied, "Run for your lives!  
Shojo and cabbits first!"

Sasami shot him a sideways glare.

"Well, I suppose we could network our powers together and  
attempt a mass teleport…"

Ryo-ohki turned his head way as he said that and shut his eyes  
demurely. When he opened them, he was floating by himself and Sammy,  
Rumiya and Achika were sat in a circle on the floor, preparing to  
meditate.

Achika glanced at him out of one eye. "Um… whenever you're  
ready…"

Ryo ohki came to a landing and joined the circle. All of them  
joined hands, closed their eyes and prepared themselves.

"Okay, just say 'boo-skaka-boo-shaka-boo-shaka-boo'."

Sasami and Achika obliged him, but Rumiya looked at him  
sceptically. "Since when was that a mass teleport spell?"

The girls opened their eyes and stared daggers at the cabbit,  
who sweatdropped. "Sorry, I just wanted to see if you'd actually say  
it. Just say 'teleport all the people that aren't conscious and all  
the ones that are that are in this building that is about to blow up  
into a safer place'." The girls shot him another glare. "Look, it  
doesn't always have to be eloquent…"

They all breathed in and began the incantation. "Teleport all  
the people that aren't conscious and all the ones that are that are  
in this building that is about to blow up…"

The charges planted around the building were detonated in a set  
sequence. First, a series of charges were set off to weaken the  
building by kicking out the windows and some ancillary framing  
trusses. These were the ones that caused the initial tremor within.  
As the glass from this explosion rained down into a hastily arranged  
cordon around the building, the main charges were set off, which  
finally took out its superstructure and brought StandardSoft's  
Japanese branch falling to the ground amid a cloud of masonry dust.

The soldiers watched their handiwork unfold and began cheering  
among themselves for a job well done. Despite the efforts of his  
comrades to get him to join them, Moriyama did not feel like  
celebrating. He was too wracked with guilt to do so. He was quite  
sure the girls, together with all the other people in the building,  
had perished. Despite their best efforts, none of the soldiers could  
rescue anyone, because all of their attempts were met with resistance  
from anyone the girls had not previously encountered.

Morosely, he took a look around the streets of Akihabara. He  
smiled sadly. In other circumstances, this would be quite a cool  
place to be. Some quite peaceful architecture, amusement arcades,  
pile of unconscious people, stores…

Moriyama backtracked that. Pile of unconscious people? What's  
wrong with this picture? But sure enough, in an intersection in the  
road, lay about a thousand people, dressed in suits, security guard  
uniforms, and janitor outfits. Generally the kind of populace one  
would expect to find in an office building.

Moriyama's smile became a much more happy one as he excitedly  
rushed to tell his CO.

Within half an hour, the police and ambulance services had  
descended onto the scene, and were proceeding to treat any injured  
and ascertain what exactly had happened. Among the office workers,  
they found one fugitive American billionnaire sat cross-legged,  
rocking, and babbling incoherently. He didn't know it, but he'd  
confessed his whole plan in his babbling. Fortunately, none of the  
police officers could understand English, but as he was both quite  
deranged and technically a fugitive from the institution anyway,  
transport to Arukamu was subsequently ordered.

Moriyama had caught up with Achika, Sammy, and Washu, and while  
he stood at his post, helping the police secure the area, they had  
explained the story to him. The scale of it all was awesome.

"He'd managed to take over virtually the entire developed  
world?" Moriyama asked.

"Yep," Achika replied. "Anyone with an internet connection was  
vulnerable. He was planning to use offline means to bring the rest of  
the world aboard, by putting the software on discs for people not on  
the net, and using squads to tour developing nations and assimilate  
them."

"Scary…"

"The thing is, he started off as the dominant figure in this  
little plan, but he overlooked one little issue," Washu said. "You  
don't give a central computer system that many human minds and not  
expect it to evolve. In the end, it was just playing him."

As they spoke, a babbling man came into earshot, being carried  
off in a strait-jacket by a group of hospital orderlies. "I could  
have had it all… I was the ruler of the developed world… AND I  
WOULD'VE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT TOO, IF IT WEREN'T FOR THOSE MEDDLING  
MAGICAL GIRLS! I SWEAR TO GOD, IF I SEE ANOTHER MAGIC SHOW, I'LL  
COME BACK AND UNLEASH AN ARMAGEDDON THE LIKES OF WHICH YOU HAVE NEVER  
SEEN! BWAHAHAHAHA!"

As Biff was led away, the girls looked at him with a curious  
mixture of fear, offset with sweatdrops.

"I really, really hope they keep him there this time," Rumiya  
mused rhetorically.

"For once, Rumiya, I agree with you…" Sasami replied. "We'd  
best be on our way back."

"Absolutely," Achika concurred. She turned to Moriyama. "Thanks  
a lot for your help, sir. There was no way we could have done it  
without you." Then she addressed Washu. "You coming?"

Washu declined the offer. "No, I think I should stay here and  
help guide the police to a solution."

"Okay then." Achika and Sammy bowed to her, before rising and  
walking away.

"WAIT!" Moriyama called out to Achika. "You didn't even tell me  
your name… or your phone number!"

Achika didn't reply as she and Sammy took off for home. As much  
as she wanted to – he was kind of cute – she couldn't tell him. Her  
reasons were two-fold – one, she wanted to protect her identity…

…And the other, she REALLY didn't want him to meet her mother.

After going from typical sanatorium to eerily quiet sanatorium  
in the space of an hour, Arukamu was back to being the typical  
sanatorium once again the day after all of this had happened. Only  
this time, the cries of insanity were more murderous, a lot of them  
calling for the death of one man, whose general description matched  
one Biff Standard. A good quarter of those cries came from the staff.

Biff himself had been heavily restrained within a padded cell  
no bigger than the storeroom he'd thrown Washu in. The only  
conveniences he had were the bed to which he was tied, and the  
television placed safely out of his range. The only reason why he had  
the television was because it was part of his treatment.

Outside the locked, fortified door to his cell, Kusanagi talked  
to a young woman with crimped dark brown hair, wearing a lab coat.  
"So, tell me about this treatment, Doctor Haruna."

"Absolutely, Doctor," the woman replied. "Mr Standard appears  
to display severe misanthropy and malevolence. Much of this appears  
to be linked to a fear of the paranormal… specifically, magic. What I  
intend to do is force Mr Standard to confront those fears, and to  
that end I am subjecting him to what I have dubbed 'magic therapy'."  
"Magic therapy?"

"Yes. I am subjecting Mr Standard to a looped DVD playback of  
an anthology of imported magic shows – the presenters include David  
Copperfield, Penn & Teller, and an English gentleman named Paul  
Daniels. I threw in the whole collection of Magic's Secrets Revealed  
as an additional precaution to aid in his recovery. I will monitor  
his progress as his treatment continues."

"When does he start?"

"I've started the DVD player now." Both Haruna and Kusanagi  
could hear the opening of the first chapter – the Paul Daniels Magic  
Show. Seconds thereafter, Biff joined the demented howls of Arukamu's  
inmates.

"I believe he's responding, Doctor," Kusanagi smiled, as he  
walked off, taking Haruna with him.

That evening, back in Okayama, the lounge of the house in back  
of CD Vision was once again alive in celebration, as Chihiro resumed  
her karaoke spectacular.

She and Misaki actually managed to finish the song they were  
performing yesterday, a performance that elicited an enthusiastic –  
if forced – applause from the collective audience. Misaki and Chihiro  
bowed, smiling with the giddiness of adulation, no matter how  
incorrectly perceived it was.

As they stepped down from the stage, Sasami approached Misaki  
and handed her a glass of wine. "Here's your drink, Mrs Kekoi."  
"Thank you," Misaki replied.

Mihoshi came in from the kitchen and deposited a bowl of prawn  
crackers and another bowl of potato chips on the coffee table. "More  
snacks, everyone!" she announced.

Tired of searching for something that was both better to do and  
a good excuse to not be here, everyone eventually leant forward to  
grab some snacks. Misao, who, like everyone else present, was dressed  
in the same outfit as she was yesterday, grabbed enough for two. Some  
of them she fed to the purple bird that had made himself a permanent  
attachment of her shoulder, where he occasional nuzzled her cheek.  
Sasami took enough for her and Ryo-ohki, but the cabbit appeared to  
not want any.

She took her seat next to Achika, who was still milling over  
her pocky. Shielded by the hubbub of conversation the others were  
generating, Sasami engaged her in what could be best described as  
shop talk. "There's one thing that puzzles me…"

"Hmm? What's that?" Achika asked.

"Well, when you shut down the M-5, the system cleanse would  
have restored everyone to normal. Does that mean you don't have the  
ability to form a symbiosis with any electronic equipment any more?"

"That's something I've been meaning to test. Watch the  
satellite box on top of the TV."

Sasami did as bid, staring intently at the satellite decoder  
box on top of her TV. As she did so, she noticed the LED display, as  
some of its numbers and parameters were changing. Sasami gasped in  
astonishment, then looked at Achika… who had the satellite box's  
remote control in her hand. Achika chuckled at the joke, and Sasami  
couldn't help but join in.

"Nope. I lost that power when the M-5 shut down," Achika  
explained. "I tried it at home last night on my computer. Nothing  
happened."

"Oh…"

"Not that I mind or anything. Who needs to control a computer  
with their mind? Takes all the fun out of it."

Sasami sweatdropped.

"Hey, Achika!" a voice called out. It was Chihiro. "You haven't  
sung anything yet! C'mon!"

"Yeah, come on, Little Achika!" Misaki chimed in. "Sing for  
us!"

"No, I can't sing very well…" Achika politely declined.

"Don't tell lies!" Misaki replied, in a tone most mothers use  
with their children – when they're infants. "I happen to know you can  
sing very well!"

"Yeah, and besides, it's just a little fun! I'm not gonna tie  
you to a recording contract or anything!" Chihiro added, trying her  
best to hide a plethora of legal documents from Achika's sight.

"Yeah, Achika, don't be a spoilsport," Tokimi smiled to her  
friend. "Sing something!"

Achika sighed in resignation. "Oh, all right. But only if I can  
choose the song."

Misaki looked disappointed. "Aw, I almost got her singing  
'London Bridge'… she was so cute when she sang that when she was  
four…"

Chihiro swiftly retracted her support from Misaki, and gestured  
towards her extensive collection of CD+G software. Achika accepted  
the invitation and leafed through it. After locating one particular  
disc, she took it out, scanned its track list, and then nodded when  
she found one she wanted. She swiftly loaded the disc, tapped in the  
track number, then waited for the laser to scan, and eventually play  
her selected track.

End Theme: 'Life is a Flower' by Ace of Base, performed by Grace  
Zandarski (or Megumi Hayashibara).

--ZZKRT—

"Wha…? What happened?" Achika asked, caught off guard.  
"Aw, dammit! It cut out again!" Chihiro moaned. "That's the  
fifth time since I bought it that it's done that!"

"Wait a minute. Mrs Kawai, you mean to tell me that this thing  
breaks down BY ITSELF!"

"Frequently. Repair bills are a bitch!"

"Who cares? Little Achika, can you fix it?" Misaki asked.  
"Oh, I'll fix it, mom. I'll fix it good. MWAHAHAHA…"

"Achika, what are you doing with that sledgehammer?" Tenchi  
cried. The sound of sledgehammer hitting the tinted plastic of a  
Pathfinder KX3962 turntable canopy was his reply.

"Electrocute me and make me worry about breaking you, you lame-  
ass, overpriced, Taiwanese—"

"Indonesian," Tokimi corrected.

"INDONESIAN PIECE OF SH—"

With the second hit, most of the Japanese national grid was  
discharged into Achika, promptly flash-frying her. She was thrown  
back a few feet, where she landed in a smouldering heap.

"Itai…"

C&C to 


End file.
